Year: 2014

Friday, 5 December 2014, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 4
A Jacobean celebration with viols and organ
With guest artists: Consort Eclectus

Program
Thomas Weelkes (1576-1623)	Gloria in excelsis Deo
Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)	This is the record of John
Thomas Tomkins (1572-1656)	Behold, I bring you glad tidings
John Bull (1562/3-1628)	Christe Redemptor omnium (organ solo)
William Byrd (c.1540-1623)	This day Christ was born (A Carol for Christmas Day)
John Amner (1579-1641)	O ye little flock
John Amner	Lo, how from heav’n like stars
Orlando Gibbons	A Fancy [for a double organ]
William Byrd	O God that drives the cheerful Sun (A Carol for New-Year’s Day)
John Bull	Almighty God, which by the leading of a star
Orlando Gibbons	See, see, the Word is incarnate

Performance of anthems with viols has been on our wish list for some years. Now that it is to become a reality it is impossible not to anticipate our Christmas to Candlemas season a bit in order to include that favourite Advent anthem, Gibbons’ This is the record of John. For that matter the other Gibbons piece, See, see the Word is incarnate also transcends the temporal limits, subsequently taking us through Passion, Resurrection and Ascension, but it begins with the Incarnation. This is truly a rare opportunity to hear many of these works.

 

SINGERS

Soprano Deborah Summerbell Katherine Lieschke Katherine Norman Maria Pisani Claerwen Jones Kathryn Pisani

Alto Belinda Wong Yi Wen Chin Niki Ebacioni Rebecca Collins

Tenor Peter Campbell Tim Van Nooten Vaughan McAlley Stuart Tennant

Bass Andrew Murray Mike Ormerod Michael Strasser

 

REVIEW

Sunday, 8 December 2014, The Age [Melbourne], p.31
A Jacobean Celebration review: Elegant music-making from Christmas to Candlemas
Clive O’Connell

A JACOBEAN CELEBRATION ★★★★
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
December 5

This edition of the ensemble’s customary Christmas to Candlemas miscellany engaged the forces of Consort Electus, a viol quintet comprising most of the city’s expert performers – Laura Vaughan and Laura Moore, Victoria Watts, Miriam Morris and Ruth Wilkinson. Conductor John O’Donnell employed the consort in most of the program’s contents, interspersed with his own organ solos by John Bull and Orlando Gibbons.

The wealth of musical brilliance available to the court of James I and his great cathedral choirs was extraordinary, evidenced on Friday evening in well-known anthems and verse-settings by Weelkes and Gibbons, like the latter’s This is the record of John full of dramatic vitality and ardour.

High satisfaction came in Thomas Tomkins Behold, I bring you glad tidings juxtaposing a clear soprano solo against a hefty 10-part choral fabric. Some curiosities unearthed by O’Donnell were a pair of anthems by John Amner of Ely Cathedral, settings that alternated duets and trios with the full chorus to splendid effect, bringing to the Gospel interaction of angels and shepherds a music both elevated and earthy.

Once again, the Gombert singers succeeded in stressing the transcendental character of the coming season’s nature; the night’s only carols – both by William Byrd and far removed in language from the well-worn imagery of snow, holly and holy nights – celebrated the simple Nativity event in restrained affirmation and welcomed the New Year with hope and affirming confidence. Not for everybody, perhaps, but this elegant music-making serves as an enriching musical experience.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Concert 2: Saturday 29 March at 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Rd, Kew

Subscription Concert 2

Some of the composers represented here were Austrian imports while others were home grown. But all works were composed in Austria, some for Catholic liturgical use, Brahms’s motets possibly for Lutheran use, Schubert’s Hebrew setting of the 92nd Psalm for the Jewish synagogue, while the Isaac, Vaet and Schoenberg works are non-liturgical. Of course Austria’s best-known sacred music consists of Masses for soloists, choir and orchestra, but this program shows that there was also a fine a cappella tradition spanning the centuries.

 

Program
Heinrich Isaac	Virgo prudentissima
Jacobus Vaet	Continuo lacrimas
Philippe de Monte	Super flumina Babylonis
Johann Stadlmayr	O magnum mysterium
Johann Fux	Three Offertoria: Ad te, Domine, levavi Ave Maria, gratia plena Tollite portas
Johann Ernst Eberlin	Two Offertoria Bonum est confiteri Domino Improperium exspectavit cor meum
Arnold Schoenberg	Friede auf Erden
Franz Schubert	Der 92. Psalm
Johannes Brahms	Drei Motetten, Opus 110

 

SINGERS

Soprano Deborah Summerbell Carol Veldhoven Katherine Norman Maria Pisani Claerwen Jones Kathryn Pisani

Alto Belinda Wong Yi Wen Chin Niki Ebacioni Rebecca Collins

Tenor Peter Campbell Tim van Nooten Vaughan McAlley Stuart Tennant

Bass Andrew Murray Thomas Bland Michael Strasser Mike Ormerod

–
REVIEW

Tuesday, 1 April 2014, The Age [Melbourne], n.p.
Singers traverse years in the Ensemble Gombert’s Five Centuries of Austrian a capella sacred music
Clive O’Connell

Five Centuries of Austrian A Cappella Sacred Music
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
March 29

John O’Donnell’s excellent choral group covered a vast field and unearthed some surprises. The Gomberts rarely disappoint, carrying along some stodgy material through a thorough professionalism and uniformity of timbre generally sustained for lengthy paragraphs, if not entire works.

O’Donnell began his cross-centuries journey with the motet Virgo prudentissima by Heinrich Isaac, a striking six-line structure that oscillates between duets for upper voices and massive complexes that manage to sound static on top and seething with action under the surface. This work set a high benchmark, sustained through a following clutch of briefer pieces.

A set of three offertoria by Johann Fux showed the teacher of counterpoint putting theory into heavy-handed practice. With a lurch into the 19th century, matters improved through Schubert’s venture into Hebrew, a setting of Psalm 92 distinguished for its robust reverence.

The Three Motets Op. 110 by Brahms are better known and combined melodic generosity with emotional compression. The most difficult music-making came in Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden, packed with harmonic stumbling blocks and a linear mesh that never stops challenging its executants. These singers produced a fluent and level-headed reading, working through its uncompromising linear argument with exemplary dedication.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Concert 1: Saturday 22 February 2014 at 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Rd, Kew

Subscription Concert 1

When Anne of Brittany, uniquely the wife of two successive French kings, as well as Duchess of Brittany in her own right, died on 9 January 1514, her funeral lasted for forty days. Such an extended ceremony must have involved a lot of music, though only the three motets presented here can be identified with certainty. Nevertheless it is generally accepted that Prioris’s fine Requiem was also written for the occasion.

 

 

Program
Jean Mouton (c.1459-1522)	Quis dabit oculis nostris
Pierre Moulu (1484?-c.1550)	Fière Attropos
Costanzo Festa (c.1490-1543)	Quis dabit oculis nostris
Josquin Desprez (c.1450-1521)	De profundis
Johannes Prioris (c.1460-c.1514)	Requiem Introitus: Requiem aeternam Kyrie Graduale: Si ambulum Sequentia: Dies irae (Gregorian chant) Offertorium: Domine Jesu Christe Sanctus Agnus Dei Communio: Lux aeterna

 

SINGERS

Soprano Carol Veldhoven Deborah Summerbell Maria Pisani Claerwen Jones Kathryn Pisani

Alto Belinda Wong Yi Wen Chin Niki Ebacioni Miranda Gronow

Tenor Peter Campbell Tim van Nooten Vaughan McAlley Stuart Tennant

Bass Andrew Murray Thomas Bland Chris Potter Michael Strasser Jerzy Kozlowski

 

REVIEW

Tuesday, 25 Febrary 2014, The Age [Melbourne], n.p.
Ensemble Gombert in fine renditions of funeral music for Anne of Brittany
Clive O’Connell

Commemorating Anne Of Brittany
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
February 22

When she died in 1514 aged 31, Duchess Anne of Brittany had been married to a German emperor and two French kings and had had 14 pregnancies. The last independent ruler of her state, she was a notable arts patron and her funeral rites lasted for 40 days, involving a good deal of music, although very few original compositions for these ceremonies have been documented.

For Saturday’s opening Ensemble Gombert series recital, artistic director John O’Donnell put together a program of works, both definites and maybes, connected with this remarkable woman’s extended obsequies, the most significant a Requiem by Johannes Prioris. This mass reveals an honest individuality and the choir gave it a finely-shaped performance with a satisfying balance between soprano and bass lines, notably in the rich Kyrie and a calmly celebratory Agnus Dei, although the well-worn plainchant Dies irae sequence seemed an odd if suitably sombre interpolation.

Two settings of the text Quis dabit oculis nostris, by Jean Mouton and Costanzo Festa, showed once again the Gomberts’ hallmarks of linear balance and controlled power. This was further substantiated by a glowing reading of Josquin’s late five-part De profundis with an interpretative depth that distinguishes this ensemble’s work at its best.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age