Saturday, 11 December 2010, 8pm
Xavier College, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 5
Our annual Christmas to Candlemas takes various shapes, at times presenting a miscellany, at other times focussing on a single composer. To date Palestrina, Lassus and Monteverdi have been accorded single-composer status, and now, just before the quattro-centenary of his death, we devote a program to the great Spaniard Tomàs Luis de Victoria. His motet O magnum mysterium is perhaps the best-known setting of this text, and the major work of the program is the Mass based on this motet.
PROGRAM
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) Christe, Redemptor omnium
Tomas Luis de Victoria O Regem caeli
Tomas Luis de Victoria Quem vidistis, pastores?
Tomas Luis de Victoria Salvete, flores Martyrum
Tomas Luis de Victoria O magnum mysterium
Tomas Luis de Victoria Hostis Herodes impie
Tomas Luis de Victoria Magi viderunt stellam
Tomas Luis de Victoria Senex puerum portabat
Tomas Luis de Victoria Missa O magnum mysterium
Kyrie – Gloria – Sanctus – Agnus Dei
| SOPRANO | ALTO | TENOR | BASS |
| Deborah Summerbell | Jennifer Mathers | Peter Campbell | Steven Hodgson |
| Katherine Norman | Rebecca Woods | Tim Van Nooten | Tim Daly |
| Carol Veldhoven | Niki Ebacioni | Daniel Thomson | Jerzy Kozlowski |
| Kathryn Pisani | Gowri Rajendran | Stuart Tennant | |
| Maria Pisani | |||
| Claerwen Jones |
REVIEW
Monday, 13 December 2010, The Age [Melbourne], n.p.
Christmas to Candlemas
Clive O’Connell
IN AN all-too-brief concert, the excellent Ensemble Gombert presented its annual Christmas program on Saturday night, two days after the fine Consort of Melbourne gave its seasonal celebration.
While the Consort and instrumental partners La Compania revelled in the music of Palestrina and Praetorius, the Gombert singers under John O’Donnell centred on works by Tomas Luis de Victoria – with Palestrina, one of the major composers of Counter-Reformation art and a master of subtle verbal coloration.
Without taking a break, O’Donnell took his forces through three hymns, five motets and the terse Mass O magnum mysterium, based on the composer’s well-known setting. Impressive as always were the group’s four tenors, articulating the plainchant verses of each hymn with certainty and that uniformity of attack you find in the best prepared vocal bodies.
Still, much of this music’s effect depends on the sopranos who often find themselves in exposed situations above the altos and on this night seemingly miles above the rolling basses of Steven Hodgson, Tim Daly and Jerzy Kozlowski.
Even in this intense and sharply etched demonstration of vocal craft you could find moments of exceptional impact, such as the stately interweaving of parts in the O magnum mysterium motet or the gleaming subtleties of Quem vidistis, pastores?, which pictures the central Christmas tableau in music of striking emotional fervour.
When you hear music-making of this quality, the essence of this season’s spiritual significance comes to vivid life beyond tawdry presents and gimcrack decorations.
Once again, we are indebted to the Ensemble Gombert musicians for their inspiring display of choral accomplishment.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age