Year: 2003

Saturday 13 December 2003, 8 pm
Sunday 14 December 2003, 2.30 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

Our Christmas to Candlemas program commences in twentieth-century France with Poulenc’s four motets for the Christmas season, before settling in Tudor England.

PROGRAM

Francis Poulenc Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël
Thomas Tallis Hodie nobis caelorum Rex
John Sheppard Reges Tharsis et insulae
William Byrd Hodie beata virgo Maria
William Byrd Senex puerum portabat
Gregorian chant Puer natus est nobis
Thomas Tallis Missa Puer natus est nobis

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	James Scott
Margaret Pearce	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Andrew Fysh
Claerwen Jones		Stuart Tennant	Tom Reid
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

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REVIEW

Thursday, 18 December 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 8, A3.
Deserving of international success
Clive O’Connell

For the ninth consecutive year, Melbourne’s pre-eminent chamber choir presented a Christmas recital with a
combination of semi-contemporary French and English Renaissance music.
As director John O’Donnell observed, it is rare to hear a high-calibre performance of serious ecclesiastical
music in a Melbourne concert hall. Not even Handel’s Messiah qualifies, as its content and provenance are
more readily associated with Easter. Poulenc’s Quatre motets pour le temps de Noel have made little inroads
into real-time services in Christian churches, although their harmonic language is simple and consonant, and
the melodic motives of O magnum mysterium and Videntes stellam live in the memory well after a performance.
Despite their focus on 16th-century music, the Gomberts have an enviable ability to move across many styles.
Indeed, the spare beauty of the four Poulenc pieces, with their bursts of full-bodied consonance and a
forefronting of the soprano line that harks back to a much earlier time, fitted the ensemble’s personnel most
congenially, as did the cool restraint of the works’ emotional content.
The major part of the recital featured earlier music: a motet by Tallis, Reges Tharsis et insulae by his
neglected contemporary John Sheppard, and two pieces for the Feast of the Purification, Candlemas itself, by
Byrd.
Bringing up the rear were the Christmas plainchant Puer natus est nobis and the recently discovered and
edited Mass by Tallis based on it. This work, in seven parts, must rank as one of the most awe-inspiring
examples of Catholic church music from pre-Elizabethan England.
Its majestic progression, the startling spikiness of its false-relation harmonic clashes and the sumptuous
spread of its lines made it a memorable example of the Gomberts’ mastery of idiom and reliability of pitch.
Of course, there were momentary indications of fatigue, notably from the tenors who are cruelly stretched at
various points. But you could overlook this when faced with the even spread and audibility of line, qualities
achieved mainly through the director’s acute awareness of the relative vocal strengths of each member in his
forces.
No wonder the Gomberts are anxious to display their talents overseas, particularly in Britain, where the purity
and precision of their sound would surely meet with an enthusiastic reception.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 7 November, 8 pm, St Ambrose Church, Woodend
Saturday 8 November, 8 pm, Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Concert 4

In our fourth concert you can hear all Brahms’ motets as well as two Bach favourites—Komm, Jesu, komm and Jesu, meine Freude.

PROGRAM

Johann Sebastian Bach Komm, Jesu, komm
Johann Sebastian Bach Jesu, meine Freude
Johannes Brahms Zwei Motetten, opus 29
1. ‘Es ist das Heil uns kommen her’
2. ‘Aus dem 51. Psalm’
Johannes Brahms Zwei Motetten, opus 74
1. ‘Warum ist das Licht gegeben’
2. ‘O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf’
Johannes Brahms Fest- und Gedenksprüche, opus 109
1. ‘Unsere Väter hofften auf dich’
2. ‘Wenn ein starker Gewappneter’
3. ‘Wo ist ein so herrlich Volk’
Johannes Brahms Drei Motetten, opus 110
1. ‘Ich aber bin elend’
2. ‘Ach, arme Welt’
3. ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein’

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Thomas Drent
Margaret Pearce	Niki Ebacioni	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Kate McBride	Susie Furphy	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Kathryn Pisani
Claerwen Jones
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

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REVIEW

Tuesday, 11 November 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 7, A3.
An ensemble on song even in new fields
Clive O’Connell

Moving some way out of their comfort zone, John O’Donnell and the Ensemble Gombert sang Brahms on
Saturday evening. The singers stayed clear of the folk-song choruses and romantic poetry settings in the
composer’s list of works, focusing on the sets of motets that stretch across Brahms’s creative life.
These four groups of works range from simple harmonisations to complex variations on a specific chorale to
original compositions with extraordinarily complex inner workings that would do credit to a master such as
Isaac, but which avoid sounding crabbed and academic, thanks to their in-built power and contrapuntal
terseness.
Brahms’s motets show the necessity for a kinder, more balanced assessment as the frequent fugues and
canons become justifiable means to an emotionally rich end: not arid exercises for their own sake but
dynamic passages woven into the religious text settings, some of them dramatic and large-scale such as
Warum ist das Licht gegeben, others such as Es ist das Heil and the moving Ach, arme Welt harnessing
superb craftsmanship to an impressive and vital statement with considerable breadth of humanity.
In the pursuit of dynamic balance, O’Donnell slightly expanded his soprano forces to eight singers, using four
only for the other three voice-types. Despite this minor adjustment of personnel, once again the Gomberts
demonstrated a near-ideal balance of lines, each part audible and distinguishable, even in massive sound
blocks such as powered out from the ensemble during the noble Fest-und Gedenkspruche Op. 109 that I was
hearing live for the first time.
The first half of the night was given over to two Bach motets: the insistent Komm, Jesu, komm and the
large-scale 11 movements that comprise Jesu, meine Freude. Parallels between the two German masters were
there to be drawn in the varied compositional devices employed, the juxtapositions and internal alterations of
texture, the application and resolution of fugue and canon, the creativity in the myriad changes that can be
rung on very simple elements.
The singers maintained their energy throughout the night, at the same time serving notice to Gombert
Ensemble admirers that their normal association with Renaissance choral music is not the whole story: their
talents are just as impressive when exercised on music that comes from several centuries outside their usual
repertoire.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 13 September 2003, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

PROGRAM

Cristóbal de Morales Gaude et laetare ferrariensis civitas
Cristóbal de Morales Lamentabatur Jacob
Francisco Guerrero Ave virgo sanctissima
Francisco Guerrero Salve regina
Tomás Luis de Victoria Ecce sacerdos magnus
Tomás Luis de Victoria O lux et decus Hispaniae
Tomás Luis de Victoria Surrexit pastor bonus
Tomás Luis de Victoria Missa pro defunctis

Note: Morales ‘Christus resurgens’ and ‘Officium defunctorum’ were advertised in subscription brochure but not performed. They were replaced by the Victoria ‘Missa pro defunctis’.

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	James Scott
Margaret Pearce	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Fiona Seers

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REVIEW

Wednesdsay, 17 September 2003, The Age [Melbourne], page 14, A3.
Gomberts excellent; Rowell impressive in attack
Clive O’Connell

The Ensemble Gombert did a side-step at their latest subscription recital, Spanish Renaissance Gems. In the
program of works by Morales, Guerrero and Victoria, the scheduled motet Christus resurgens by Morales
disappeared; more importantly, so did the same composer’s Office of the Dead, in place of which the
organisation offered Victoria’s Requiem Mass. The liturgical intentions might have been similar, but the Mass
is well-known, the Office rarely heard live.
Nevertheless, the night involved the expected professional display from this body, which now has an
unusually solid tenor rank. There are new faces in the alto section, but the line remains well-founded; bass
Andrew Fysh has found reinforcements for his dark colour in some fresh colleagues.
The sopranos now number six, the largest group in the ensemble. There is an odd practice among the
top-most voices of one of the singers making a slight swoop on to high phrase-starting notes, which grated.
The performances were thoroughly enjoyable, reaching a captivating climax in the final Agnus Dei of the
sombre Victoria Mass, but preceded by a interplay in the same composer’s O lux et decus Hispaniae, a superb
example of how to extol a mediocre character; and the sombre ruefulness of Morales’s plaintive motet
Lamentabatur Jacob. Another excellent exhibition from the ensemble.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 8 March 2003, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 1

Concert 1 balances Tallis and Byrd in Lenten vein with Rubbra’s festive Lauda Sion and Vaughan Williams’ much-loved Mass in G minor.

PROGRAM

Thomas Tallis Te lucis ante terminum (2 versions)
Thomas Tallis In ieiunio et fletu
Thomas Tallis Derelinquat impius
Thomas TallisIn manus tuas
William Byrd Tribulationes civitatum
William Byrd Ne irascaris, Domine
William Byrd Vide, Domine, afflictionem nostram
Edmund Rubbra Lauda Sion
Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor

Note: Byrd ‘Circumspice, Hierusalem’ advertised in subscription brochure but not performed.

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jenny George	Tim Van Nooten	James Scott
Margaret Pearce	Margaret Arnold	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

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REVIEW

Friday, 14 March 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
Ancient choral works create piercing modern emotion
Clive O’Connell

In an English Polyphony Old and New program to begin their year’s subscription series, John O’Donnell and
his Ensemble Gombert performed five motets by Tallis and three by Byrd; none of them familiar pieces, even
considering the few choral works from Tudor times that have reached some level of familiarity.
Just as rarely heard is Edmund Rubbra’s Lauda Sion setting, although O’Donnell has given performances of
most of the British symphonist’s choral music with various choirs over the past decade. Luckily, the Gombert
voices were capable of standing up to the occasionally bracing demands of this striving, emotionally
expansive work.
During the night’s first part, the choir excelled in the Byrd works, all expressive of the fears felt by a recusant
living through the time of Elizabeth I.
In the driving grandeur of Tribulationes civitatum, the obsessive picture of desolation that concludes Ne
irascaris, Domine and the acerbic harmonic clashes of Vide, Domine, the composer depicted the uncertainty
and unrest resulting from religious and political clashes, in his and our own times.
The Gomberts found few difficulties with the Tallis sequence but the angular wide-spaced textures of Byrd’s
“Babylon” motets, drawing comparisons between threatened Catholics and the Jews in captivity, gave the
best possible evidence of the group’s admirable ability to express piercing emotion with unflustered clarity.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age