Year: 2002

Saturday, 14 December 2002, 8pm
Sunday, 15 December 2002, 2.30pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

Our annual carol-free Christmas concert is this year devoted to Lassus, recognized as the greatest master of the Late Renaissance both in his time and ours.

PROGRAM

Orlande de Lassus Resonet in laudibus
Orlande de Lassus Quem vidistis pastores
Orlande de LassusVerbum caro factum est
Orlande de Lassus In principio erat verbum
Orlande de Lassus Mirabile mysterium
Orlande de Lassus Omnes de Saba venient
Orlande de LassusVidentes stellam
Orlande de Lassus Adorna thalamum
Orlande de Lassus Nunc dimittis primi toni Il magnanimo Pietro
Orlande de Lassus Magnificat super Praeter rerum seriem
Orlande de Lassus Missa In principio

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Niki Ebacioni	Tim Van Nooten	Sam Furphy
Margaret Pearce	Margaret Arnold	Vaughan McAlley	Darren Parer
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Fiona Seers

–
REVIEW

Tuesday, 17 December 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
Handel’s pacy, pared-down Christmas favourite
Clive O’Connell

FOR its final Christmas to Candlemas recital, the Ensemble Gombert sang music by Orlando de Lassus: four
Christmas Day motets, one for the Feast of the Circumcision, two for Epiphany and another two relevant to
the Feast of the Purification. Rather than take an interval, John O’Donnell kept his forces singing for the final
Magnificat and the Mass In Principio.
The prolific Renaissance composer’s timbre or sound quality is not as consonant or smooth in its harmonic
fluidity as Palestrina’s sacred music, nor as sparely striving as that of Victoria.
In fact, the main impression from this evening’s work proved to be Lassus’ unexpectedly high
experimentation level; whether it was in sudden harmonic swerves, or the removal of basses from the fabric,
or a whole passage devoted to exploiting low choral voices, there was usually something to rouse the
listener’s interest.
Of course, this music is a specialised choral genre, far removed from what most of us will hear in churches
over the coming week.
Yet, for all the felicity of the composer’s writing in which dramatic effect and form make equable partners,
these works present even superior bodies like the Gomberts with tests – on this night, chiefly of balance in the
weight given to each voice and its subdivisions.
For every section of this 14-part program, the group maintained their impressive articulation, faltering on
very few occasions.
We have heard scraps of this music before, but O’Donnell and his singers are always exploring new
expansions of their repertoire.
On this night, the Mass took the honours by producing an affecting, searchlight-clear extended sequence in
this worthwhile and cleverly cast Lassus retrospective.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Sunday, 8 December 2002.
Hawthorn Town Hall, Hawthorn

The Mozart Collection
Presented by The Academy of Melbourne

PROGRAM

Jeremiah Clarke Prince of Denmark’s March
GF Handel Eternal Source of Light Divine
GF Handel Let the Bright Seraphim
CPE Bach Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, W. 23.
Antonio Vivaldi Magnificat
Antonio Vivaldi Gloria

Ensemble Gombert personnel unknown

The Academy of Melbourne
Angela Brewer – soprano
Tristram Williams – trumpet
Vicki Philipson – oboe
Margaret Pearce – soprano
Fiona Seers – soprano
Claerwen Jones – soprano
John O’Donnell – harpsichord
Brett Kelly – conductor

REVIEW

Tuesday, 10 December 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
No baroque amplification necessary as arrangement strikes a chord
Clive O’Connell

[…]
Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Gloria involved the collaboration of the Ensemble Gombert at the Academy of
Melbourne’s last Mozart Collection concert on Sunday. Neither work stretches a choir, least of all one as
inured as the Gombert’s to improbably difficult and complex Renaissance works.Conductor Brett Kelly employed a small orchestra of 14 strings for the afternoon, backing Tristram Williams’
trumpet for the Prince of Denmark’s March, the combination of Williams and soprano Angela Brewer for
some Handel arias – Eternal Source of Light Divine and Let the Bright Seraphim – followed by John
O’Donnell’s account of C.P.E. Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, W. 23.
Little of this raised the temperature to any notable degree. The March is lollipop-sized; Brewer had obvious
problems in finding breath to last through the extended scale passages of both arias. While there is an
occasionally intriguing element in the Bach concerto with some abrupt turns and sudden harmonic shifts, the
interest stays on a scholarly level, with several extended passages containing a determined working-out of
material but little else to engage attention.
For the two Vivaldi works, the Ensemble Gombert sang dutifully if not with that cloud-piercing finesse that it
shows in its subscription series.
The solo passages, taken by choir members, revealed occasional bursts of colour or individuality. Among
these, Margaret Pearce’s two solos in the Gloria showed a soprano voice of marked individuality, while the
duets of Claerwen Jones and Fiona Seers in both works were pleasurable because of the appealing
combination of two fresh and unspoiled high voices.
Yet the overall impression was of easy music-making, the academy strings playing with restrained power,
particularly notable for their truth of intonation in passages that required no vibrato.
Some instrumental spice was supplied by oboe Vicki Philipson and William’s trumpet, reduced to near-reed
status for the final work. Generally clean and precise, the Vivaldi double-bill made for pleasant listening but
brought the Mozart Collection series to an oddly low-key conclusion.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 7 September 2002, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 4

Two of these Roberts were certainly Scottish, while the birth place of Wylkynson is not known. The latter’s resplendent nine-voice Salve regina is one of the glories of the Eton Choirbook, while Carver’s brilliant ten-voice
Mass was almost certainly composed for the accession of James V of Scotland on the Feast of Michaelmas 1513. Though Scottish by birth, Johnson spent most of his working life in England. Our program includes the four most popular of his ten extant motets.

PROGRAM

Robert Wylkynson Salve regina
Robert Johnson Ave Dei patris filia
Robert Johnson Dum transisset Sabbatum
Robert Johnson Gaude Maria virgo
Robert Johnson Deus misereatur nostri
Robert Carver Missa Dum sacrum mysterium

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	JennyGeorge	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Ross Abraham
Margaret Pearce	Margaret Arnold	Vaughan McAlley	Thomas Drent
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani		Frank Prain	Jerzy Kozlowski
Fiona Seers

–
REVIEW

Monday, 9 September 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 5, The Culture.
Voices that take your breath away
Clive O’Connell

[…] No such troubles on the following night for the Ensemble Gombert, singing under the high dome of the
Xavier Chapel.
John O’Donnell directed the program of three Renaissance composers called Robert, all English or Scots.
As both the opening motet and the program’s main work called for nine and 10 voices, we heard from a
slightly expanded group of expert singers, with alto Margaret Arnold and bass Jerzy Kozlowski back in
harness, tenors Frank Prain and Tim van Nooten appearing again after their previous night’s exertions for
Gloriana.
Complicated constructs like Wylkynson’s Salve Regina hold no fears for these singers who have more mature
voices than are found in most other Melbourne choirs.
O’Donnell leaves these works to make their own statements, avoiding any over-dramatising of music that is often astoundingly powerful, the top lines soaring over a boiling, energetic maelstrom of tenors and basses.
The use that Wylkynson makes of his nine layers results in organ-rich mixtures, mirrored in the
near-contemporaneous Mass Dum sacrum mysterium by Carver, which also heaps up strand upon strand and
suddenly cuts away to reveal various strata, like a passage for three basses in the work’s Sanctus.
Also programmed were four motets by Johnson, climaxing in a joyous set of praises to the Virgin, Ave Dei
patris.
True, not all the singing was free from trouble; some of the bass notes in the Mass were suspect and the
opening to the Agnus Dei sounded hesitant.
But when operating at full power, this choir makes you hold your breath in admiration at the vital richness of
their sound world, a never-failing pleasure in the year’s musical round.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 29 June 2002, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

Saint Peter, Prince of Apostles and first Bishop of Rome, has been well celebrated in music. The highlight of this program is Palestrina’s sonorous six-voice Mass based on his own popular motet Tu es Petrus. The performance will become an Anglo-Italian feast, movements of the Mass being interspersed with Byrd’s Propers for the occasion.

PROGRAM

Nicolas Gombert Surge Petre
Clemens non Papa Tu es Petrus
Cristóbal de Morales Tu es Petrus
Costanzo Festa Petrus beatus catenarum laqueos
Tomás Luis de Victoria Tu es Petrus
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina  Tu es Petrus
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Missa Tu es Petrus
William Byrd Propers for the Feast of SS Peter & Paul

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Thomas Drent
Margaret Pearce	Susie Furphy	Vaughan McAlley	Philip Nicholls
Kathryn Pisani	Niki Ebacioni	Stuart Tennant	James Scott
Claerwen Jones
Maria Pisani

–
REVIEWS

Tuesday, 2 July 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
A divine evening as choir reaches for the heavens
Clive O’Connell

On the liturgical feast day of St Peter, the Ensemble Gombert under John O’Donnell honoured the saint with a
representative selection from the large store of Renaissance music written in his honour, chiefly reinforcing
his status as the first Pope.
Of course, the Biblical sentence that has come in for most attention over the centuries has been the ringing Tu es Petrus proclamation in which Christ passed on his responsibilities to the Galilee fisherman and thereby set up the colossal edifice of the Roman church.
The ensemble began with one of their patron’s works, Surge, Petre, energetically concerned with getting the
apostle on the move after a stint in prison. Then followed four settings of Tu es Petrus by four Renaissance
master-composers – Clemens non Papa, Morales, Victoria and Palestrina. The last of these in particular
created a spectacularly jubilant sound when the text came to the passing on of `the keys of the kingdom of
heaven’. Here, the six lines of the Gomberts’ complex gave life to the musical power and assurance expected
at this point from the leading composer of the Counter-Reformation.
In the evening’s second part, O’Donnell took his forces through the Mass that Palestrina based on his motet,
adding a continuous contrast to the Italian composer’s seamless fabric by interposing William Byrd’s settings
of the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia, Offertory and Communion verses. This made a splendid chance to compare
the music of the two great contemporaries, Byrd’s fanciful stolidity and use of intervallic leaps serving as a
leavening to the Palestrina work’s imperturbable elegance and deliberately lavish chord spacings.
But the vital pleasure of the night came in the choir’s high standard of delivery which, faltering only for a
second or two, wove its magic with majesty and deliberation. Even when the tenors or basses were
subdivided, the strands could be perceived easily and the surging linear interplay of this night’s singing once
again served notice that the Gomberts are back at their high-powered best.
[…]
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Tuesday, 2 July 2002, Herald-Sun [Melbourne], page 52.
Feast day supplies musical menu
Xenia Hanusiak

ENSEMBLE Gombert brought a religious focus to their third subscription concert of the year.
June 29, according to the ecclesiastical calendar, marks the Feast of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. Paul seemed to have got sidelined, so on the day all the attention fell to Peter.
With Peter and the Mass of the day as its raison d’etre, Ensemble Gombert treated us to a day in the liturgical life of Renaissance Italy. The first part of the concert consisted of various motets in homage to
Peter.
There was great comfort and ease in this section of the concert, and most especially in the less challenging four and five-voice settings. The choir could indulge confidently in the pleasure.
Now in its second decade, Ensemble Gombert is well versed in the Renaissance harmonic template. While the membership has altered, this unique chamber ensemble is in peak form.
The Mass settings gave us the opportunity to hear contemporaries Englishman William Byrd and the Italian Palestrina in tandem. On the one hand, Palestrina’s counterpoint is so consistent it is possible to codify. On the other, Byrd’s releases a sense of freedom. In both cases, purity of expression and harmony remain potent agents, and with this Ensemble Gombert excelled.

Saturday, 2 March 2002, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel,  Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 1

The Sistine Chapel, private chapel of the Pope, has attracted some of the finest composers of liturgical music over the ages, especially during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Renaissance choirbooks of the chapel have been well preserved: scholars regularly peruse these grand tomes in an ongoing searchfor further knowledge of the music and its performance. All four composers represented in this program were at various times employed in the chapel as both singers and composers. Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli remains one of the golden favourites of the era.

PROGRAM

Josquin Desprez  Ave Maria
Josquin Desprez Inviolata, integra, et casta es Maria
Josquin Desprez Benedicta es, caelorum Regina
Costanzo Festa Magnificat septimi toni
Costanzo Festa  Ave Regina caelorum
Cristóbal de Morales O sacrum convivium
Cristóbal de Morales Lamentabatur Jacob
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina Missa Papae Marcelli
Note: Morales ‘Emendemus in melius’ was advertised in the subscription brochure but not performed.

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Thomas Drent
Fiona Seers	Susie Furphy	Vaughan McAlley	Sam Furphy
Claerwen Jones	Barbara Tattam	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

–
REVIEW

Tuesday, 6 March 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
Uplifting portrait of the spiritual in art
Clive O’Connell

What strikes you afresh each time Ensemble Gombert begins its yearly round is not just how good the group
is but how it maintains such a high standard despite changes in personnel, albeit slight ones.
The body’s impeccably contoured and carefully mixed timbres returned to Melbourne on Saturday night, once
again sweeping all before them, staking Gombert’s claim to being the finest interpreter in the country of a
cappella Renaissance music.
Once again, you are left wondering if we are likely to hear singing of this quality from visiting choirs. In fact,
guest organisations that used to visit Australia to exhibit their choral wares are becoming thinner on the
ground, possibly because quite a few rely heavily on advance publicity built on historical reputation rather
than current ability. Another reason is that their demonstrations of expertise often fall flat when local bodies
like Ensemble Gombert sing just as well, if not better.
This is not simple-minded jingoism, the my-choir-right-or-wrong argument. Certainly, there are glitches in
the Gombert fabric every so often and the group’s performances are not always recording-studio perfect. But
then, the choir treats audience members as fellow discoverers, moving off a path all too well beaten by
others, taking on many of the most challenging early and late Renaissance pieces.
The group does not stick, year-in, year-out, with the familiar stock-in-trade that you can hear from many
British (or Australian) cathedral choirs with entrenched musical traditions.
On Saturday, director John O’Donnell led his 18 singers in works written by former members of or composers
for the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel choir, progressing over roughly an 80-year period from Josquin’s four-voice
Ave Maria to the sunburst clarity of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, the composer’s object lesson in
making sense of the mass without sacrificing that breathtaking amplitude of timbral fabric achieved by the
great masters of the High Renaissance.
O’Donnell and his collaborators presented an even reading of this music, maintaining a sensitivity to the ebb
and flow of linear interplay, that dazzling polyphonic extroversion typical of Mediterranean church music in
the 16th century.
Nobody pushed the pace or “pointed” notes for cheap dramatic effect and the choir’s treatment of dynamics
moved in direct relationship to the texts and the composer’s disposition of parts.
There are always difficulties in these transparent works, problems that singers manage in various styles. For instance, the Palestrina Mass pushes both sets of tenor parts pretty high; with only four singers at his disposal,
O’Donnell asked for a light and floating attack, rather than the customary bellow employed to make the notes
“count” at exposed moments. Yet, beyond the technical craft and welding of the available vocal possibilities,
where Ensemble Gombert takes precedence is in its communication of this music’s transcendental beauty.
In the slow-moving majesty of Lamentabatur Jacob by Morales or Josquin’s ardent Benedicta es, caelorum
Regina, the choir offers a sonorous realisation of the spiritual in art, a physical depiction of the insights that
visited mystics like St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila.
This is far from a superficial exercise, the kind of thing others achieve by playing around with timbres for
effect.
For one thing, the Xavier Chapel offers the audience pretty close quarters for observation and what strikes
you time and again about this ensemble is its focus on the task at hand; there is simply no time for anything
but producing the best possible sound. Indeed, performed properly, this style of music moves too quickly for
anything like self-indulgence.
Which may point to the exceptional quality of Ensemble Gombert. Even with a limited number of voices,
there are few moments when you can detect the sound of an individual singer; each member is subsumed in
the totality of the choir’s output.
That is probably the strongest testament to O’Donnell’s realised vision of how this music should sound, as
well as proof of the group’s strong collaborative character and its members’ superlative musicianship.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age