Year: 2008

Saturday, 13 December 2008, 8 pm
Xavier College Chape, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

This is not the celebrated Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, but a selection of vespers music from his large 1640 compilation. While the earlier collection is often associated with St Mark’s, Venice, it was actually composed in Mantua, before Monteverdi’s Venetian years. The music of the 1640 publication, however, is true Venetian music, perhaps composed over a period of a quarter of a century, yet all of these pieces demonstrate Monteverdi’s undiminished creative powers.

PROGRAM

Monteverdi’s Christmas Vespers (from his 1640 publication)

Claudio Monteverdi Versiculus et responsorium
Paulo Quagliati [organ] Toccata dell’ottavo tuono
Claudio Monteverdi Dixit Dominus
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del secundo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Confitebor
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del quinto tono
Claudio Monteverdi Beatus vir
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del ottavo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Laudate pueri
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del settimo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Laudate Dominum omnes gentes
Paulo Quagliati [organ] Canzona
Claudio Monteverdi Christe, Redemptor omnium
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del primo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Magnificat primi toni

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Kieran Rowe
Carol Veldhoven	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Tom Henry
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Daniel Thomson	Chris Potter
Kathryn Pisani	Jenny George	Matthew Thomson	Tim Daly
Maria Pisani
Claerwen Jones

Instrumental ensemble
John O’Donnell – chamber organ

REVIEW

Monday, 15 December 2008, The Age [Melbourne], page 16.
Spirit soars in simple hymn of repemption
Clive O’Connell

FOLLOWING a pattern set in last year’s Christmas-to-Candlemas recital, the Ensemble Gombert presented
interleaving Venetian works: psalm-settings, a hymn and Magnificat from Monteverdi’s so-called Christmas
Vespers, interspersed with organ intonations and toccatas by Andrea Gabrieli and Quagliati supplied by the
conductor John O’Donnell.
Pairs of violins and bass viols, one violone, a sackbut and Samantha Cohen’s theorbo supplied a solid
instrumental support for the voices that offered added interest.
The tenor line now enjoys two more high-flying voices in Daniel and Matthew Thomson, while Peter
Campbell’s stalwart efforts have a worthy foil in Tim van Nooten whose timbre has broadened in colour and
confidence. A similar invigorating experience emerged hearing sopranos Fiona Seers and Claerwen Jones
take on heavy responsibilities, notably in the Magnificat.
But the evening’s surprise came through a simple hymn, Christe, redemptor omnium. No clever detail here;
just a shapely melody treated with sensitivity and a crisp sparkle, spot-on for this season’s celebrations.

Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 24 May 2008, 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

The compositional output of the prolific Lassus includes many cycles — for example, the Sacrae lectiones novem ex propheta Iob, the Psalmi Davidis poenitentiales, and two sets of Hieremiae prophetae lamentationes. Just days before his death, Lassus completed a setting of the twenty-one ottava stanzas of Tansillo’s Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of Saint Peter), a work described by scholar James Haar as “one of the most remarkable artistic testaments in the history of music”. Earlier and shorter, but no less remarkable in their own way, are the Prophetiae Sibyllarum (Prophecies of the Sibyls), perhaps Lassus’s most significant essay in chromaticism.

PROGRAM

Orlande de Lassus Prophetiae Sibyllarum
Orlande de Lassus Lagrime di San Pietro

 

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Kieran Rowe
Carol Veldhoven	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Julien Robinson
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Tim Daly
Kathryn Pisani	Gowri Rajendran	Stuart Tennant
Maria Pisani
Claerwen Jones

 

REVIEW

Tuesday, 27 May 2008, The Age [Melbourne], page 13.
Ensemble in assured rendition of Prophecies
Clive O’Connell

IN THE middle of its annual subscription series, the Ensemble Gombert concentrated on Renaissance protean
composer Orlande de Lassus, presenting two major works from either end of his career: the Prophecies of the
Sibyls and the Tears of St Peter. Because of the Messiaen festival in St Patrick’s Cathedral, I was able to hear
only the 12-section setting of the verses purporting to foretell the coming and life of Christ.
While much of the popular music of Lassus falls on the ear with bracing sweetness when placed in the
company of his contemporaries, the language of the Prophecies holds a startling amount of chromatic shifts, a
device prefigured in Lassus’ own introductory verses and that parts of the following segments live up to
vigorously. Not that these sideways slips held many challenges for the Gombert singers, who are well-versed
in much more arcane material.
Further, the work asks for four vocal lines only and so the full energy of the Gombert sopranos and tenors
reinforced the deliberation of Lassus’ word-setting, which rarely involves repetition but proceeds through
each stanza with a time-conserving rigour. Still, the uninterrupted flow of the work showed this admirable
body in fine voice, if nowhere near fully stretched technically or interpretively.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age