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.