Category: Reviews

Three 20th-century Masterpieces
Saturday, 3 September 2016, 5.30pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 2

Ralph Vaughan Williams Mass in G Minor
Hugo Distler Totzentanz
Petr Eben Hořká hlína

Soprano
Carol Veldhoven; Katherine Lieschke; Victoria Brown;
Katharina Hochheiser; Claerwen Jones; Kathryn Pisani
Alto
Belinda Wong; Juliana Kay; Yi Wen Chin;
Niki Ebacioni; Jane Schleiger
Tenor
Peter Campbell; Tim van Nooten;
Vaughan McAlley; Michael Stephens
Bass
Adrian Phillips; Andrew Murray; Nicholas Tolhurst
Mike Ormerod, Michael Strasser

For the Eben
Piano: John O’Donnell
Baritone solo: Vaughan McAlley
For the Distler
Der Tod (Death): Michael Strasser
Der Kaiser (The Emperor): Nicholas Tolhurst
Der Bischof (The Bishop): Andrew Murray
Der Edelmann (The Nobleman): Juliana Kay
Der Arzt (The Physician): Victoria Brown
Der Kaufmann (The Merchant): Tim van Nooten
Der Landsknecht (The Mercenary): Niki Ebacioni
Der Schiffer (The Sailor): Belinda Wong
Der Klausner (The Hermit): Vaughan McAlley
Der Bauer (The Farmer): Yi Wen Chin
Die Jungfrau (The Young Woman): Katharina Hochheiser
Der Greis (The Old Man): Mike Ormerod
Das Kind (The Child): Katherine Lieschke

REVIEW

4 September 2016, O’Connell the Music, [online]
One out of three?
Clive O’Connell
THREE TWENTIETH-CENTURY MASTERPIECES
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
Saturday September 3

It’s a fraught business, picking masterpieces, and trying to do so when treating music of more recent times presents substantial difficulties.   Most of us would not argue with John O’Donnell and his Ensemble Gombert when they selected Vaughan Williams’ Mass in G minor as the opening to this ambitiously named concert.  The work is much loved in the English-speaking world for its serene fluency, a sort of inevitability that takes you back across centuries of self-regarding English church music to the magnificent assurance of the Tudor masters.

Expanded slightly for this occasion to twenty voices, the group produced a perfectly satisfying reading, with a splendidly full interlocking of voices at the great double-choir moments: the opening to the Gloria and its Cum Sancto Spiritu pages, both the Cujus regni and Et vitam venturi from the Creed, those seraph-suggesting Osanna antiphonal strophes, and the spacious breadth of the last page’s Dona nobis pacem pleas.  In the best British choral tradition, the four soloists proved equal to their tasks, carried out with care and no attention-grabbing quirks; the only glitch I detected came in the last exposed tenor solo of the Agnus Dei where the high G sounded strangled.

Hugo Distler’s Totentanz is an impressive construct  . . .  but a masterpiece?   It could be, but the choral components bear only part of the score’s weight.   The work is a real Dance of Death  –  a voluble character who invites a range of representative individuals to give themselves up to the inevitable.   Starting with an emperor and working through the social ranks to a new-born child,  Death orders each to join the dance, answering their pleas for mercy/understanding with an unanswerable response concerning what each of the condemned could have or should have done before facing the Judgement.

This is conducted in rhymed spoken dialogue, the source Johannes Klocking who shaped his verses for Distler’s use.   The choral contribution comprises a group of 14 Sayings, aphorisms by Angelius Silesius from his The Cherubinic Pilgrim of 1657, the ones that Distler chose all commenting on the coming interchange between Death and his newest victim.   After a fashion, these spruchen serve as off-centre chorale-preludes, proffering brief statements about the condemned one’s condition or failing(s).  The problem is that DIstler’s settings, apart from the bookends, are truly aphoristic – no sooner begun than over – which makes it hard to find a consistent field of operations from the composer.  The choral writing is challenging for its application of dissonance, but the briefness of Distler’s statements has the impact of diffusing any compositional personality.

O’Donnell had one singer reciting Death’s lines and shared the roles of bishop, physician, merchant, sailor and the rest around his singers, who coped with some stickily consonant-rich German quatrains quite well, if a few of the nouns and verbs were transmuted in the process.   Yet, at the work’s conclusion, despite the encircling and infiltrating effect of the music, the greatest impression is made by Klocking’s stanzas with their no-nonsense self-evaluations and insistence.

Petr Eben’s Horka hlina or Bitter earth is an early work from 1959-60 when the composer was 30.   It consists of a setting for baritone (not an over-taxed role), mixed choir and piano, of poems by Jaroslav Seifert, the Nobel Prize-winning Czech poet who produced these nationalistic verses in 1938 as his country faced Nazi invasion.   The imagery is emphatic and repetitious – a bayonet, a painted jug, grapes/flowers/grain/stones and pebbles – and the settings are either stentorian or folk-style sentimental.   Both outer movements – Song of the Men and Women, and Song of the Poor – have voluble piano accompaniments, here performed by O’Donnell.   Streams of powerful virtuosity introduce and sustain chorus work that is declamatory and full-blooded.  The central piece, a mainly a cappella Song of the Homeland, has a quieter ambience and more lyrical melodic content. But on one hearing – and I could find no recordings of the work – it is hard to enter into evaluative detail of worth.    A masterpiece?    I think Eben would have proposed others among his works more qualified for that title.

Nevertheless, the Gomberts’ performance of this and the Distler work, with the participants coming down from the altar to the front of the chapel pews, proved highly persuasive, particularly the ensemble’s mastery of Seifert’s texts in the original Czech.

Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of O’Connell the Music

Saturday, 30 April 2016, 5.30pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 1

SINGERS

Soprano
Deborah Summerbell; Carol Veldhoven; Katherine Lieschke; Victoria Brown;
Katharina Hochheiser; Claerwen Jones; Kathryn Pisani
Alto
Kathryn Pisani (Missa); Belinda Wong; Juliana Kay;
Niki Ebacioni; Rebecca Collins; Peter Campbell
Tenor
Tim van Nooten; Vaughan McAlley; Michael Stephens; Stuart Tennant
Bass
Adrian Phillips; Nicholas Tolhurst; Mike Ormerod; Michael Strasser

REVIEW

2 May 2016, O’Connell the Music, [online]
A Massive Music
Clive O’Connell
MUSIC OF THE CAPILLA FLAMENCA
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
Saturday April 30

Holding back nothing at the start of their annual subscription series, John O’Donnell and the Ensemble Gombert presented an impressive night’s work on Saturday, filled with music from composers for the Flemish Chapel, that central religious music body associated with the Holy Roman Emperors.   Pierre de la Rue, Brumel and the ensemble’s namesake are familiar quantities to most lovers of Renaissance activity; Noel Bauldeweyn and Thomas Crecquillon, not so much; for this program, the latter provided two motets that shamelessly flattered (or did they?) Emperor Charles V, while Bauldeweyn contributed a motet on which Gombert wrote the mass that gave this recital its spine.

It is a mighty work, the Missa Quam Pulchra es; so much so that O’Donnell served it up in discrete sections, with interpolations from those other Franco-Flemish composers mentioned above.   A fine initiative, as far as it went; the trouble here was that some of these interstitial pieces were not small passages of relief but considerable constructs, like the Brumel Laudate Dominum in caelis amalgam of Psalms 148 and 150 that proved just as substantial as parts of the Gombert mass, with the added quality of a text crying out for hyperbole, insofar as that existed among these composers.

De la Rue’s Magnificat octavi toni made an expansive initial gambit, alternating four-part polyphony with plainchant and distinguished by its unexpected musings on certain phrases in the central verses Fecit potentiam in brachio suo, and, further on, the dispersit superbos mente cordis sui observation.  But the impression at the end was of continuous variety, two-part settings with over-lapping entries set against bursts of full choral texture.  This bounding around also gave the venerable text a welcome gaiety, mirroring the Virgin’s delight in her treatment.

Bauldeweyn’s motet, its inspiration taken from the Song of Songs, made the mildest of introductions to the mass, an upward step pattern of a 4th providing a jumping-off stone for nearly all Gombert’s Ordinary settings; nothing particularly striking to be found, either, in later phrases but all clear grist to an inventive mind on the lookout for a cantus firmus or three.  In the Kyrie, apart from the rich complex of six interweaving and contrasting lines, the only oddity came in an unexpected upward inflexion at the end of the Christe eleison.

But the Gloria was a whole new matter.  Gombert massed his forces and kept up the pressure in a welter throughout the first half, up to that traditional hiatus point before the Qui tollis change of purpose from incessant apostrophes of praise to pleading for redemption.   At the start of the extolling sequence – Laudamus te. Benedicimus te. Adoramus te. Glorificamus te. – the strong suggestion was of bell-like vocal cannonades, constant and even in a seamless paean.   This was followed by a full-bodied sequence of apostrophes as the choir asserted the divine attributes, from Domine Deus through to Filius Patris.  The less sympathetic could see this as pounding away at doubt or scepticism through a technique of musical bludgeoning that admits of no argument, a less sympathetic anti-Reformation response than Palestrina’s, for example.  But the effect from these singers was close to overwhelming, splendidly assured and confident.

A similar feat occurred in the Credo which spread its affirmations in one chain from the opening bold declaration to the assertion of God made man.  After the block assault thus far, the Crucifixus and its consequents provided a relief in tension through more obviously varied textural oppositions but the movement reached its uplifting climax in the Confiteor section, a ferment of linear and metrical action.  Still, it seemed to me that the finest singing came in the Sanctus/Benedictus, particularly in a mellifluous delineation of the Pleni sunt caeli segment where the Gomberts’ balance and clarity of output impressed most fully.

Both Crecquillon motets praising his emperor were given a steady, martial interpretation, Carole magnus erat enjoying a striking soprano kick-off, its directness of speech a contrast to the preceding formidable Gloria, as was its sober ending where the poet and composer collaborate to celebrate the good intentions of the emperor, truly pious rather than obsessed by his own glory.   A theme that returned in Quis te victoriam dicat? where the march-like metre celebrates the royal figure’s victory over his enemies but, more to the point, over himself – a message that was reinforced two-and-a-half times with determined grace by this hard-worked but rarely faltering body of singers.

For this occasion, the Gombert personnel numbers were slightly greater than usual with an extra alto and another tenor while regular Peter Campbell paid a peripatetic visit to the altos every once in a  while.   Still, for those of us who were there, the Ensemble demonstrated yet again why its reputation as the city’s indubitable experts in Renaissance choral music is unchallenged.

Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of O’Connell the Music

Saturday, 5 December 2015, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 4

With special guests La Compañia, the Renaissance Band.

Toward the end of his life Michael Praetorius reflected on the fact (as he saw it) that music had come to its perfection in his time and among German Protestants. He was neither the first nor the last to articulate such partisan sentiments, but when one hears his multi-choral works performed by voices and the instruments of his day one cannot but acknowledge a justifiable pride. These splendid works follow Schütz’s Christmas Story, a work conceived on a humbler scale, unfolding the Christmas and Epiphany stories in a variety of combinations of voices and instruments.

SINGERS

REVIEW

Sunday, 6 December 2015, O’Connell the Music.
A triumph for magniloquence
Clive O’Connell
Available from: <http://oconnellthemusic.com/> [6 December 2015].

CHRISTMAS TO CANDLEMAS: SCHUTZ AND PRAETORIUS
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
December 5, 2015

Melbourne’s finest choral force had a pretty easy time at its last concert for 2015, a by-now traditional event that can take in music dealing with the Christmas Night event as well as its Gospel postludes up to the Feast of the Purification and the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. On Saturday, the Gombert singers collaborated with some of Danny Lucin’s early music experts from La Compania: a sextet of cornett, sackbuts and three strings supplementing John O’Donnell who directed each segment from a chamber organ.

Central to the program, Schutz’s Weihnachtshistorie prefigures later settings of the Nativity story, the most famous being Bach’s wide-ranging Christmas Oratorio. But where the later composer deviates from the New Testament text to interpolate introductory choruses, a sinfonia, many arias, chorales, a duet or two, some ariosi, even a trio, Schutz sticks to his last and simply tells the story as set down in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Most of this task falls to an Evangelist who occupies centre-stage for much of the piece’s length, following a rather strict one-note-one-syllable recitative path with – as far as I could hear – only a couple of fanciful flights – on the word entfloh suggesting the flight to Egypt, and a final flourish at the close of the Evangelist’s contributions where he observes God’s grace in the growing child Jesus.

The full Gombert complement contributed to the work with the solid opening which promises at some length that what follows is concerned with Christ’s birth, and with the conclusion, a hymn of thanks praising God at some length. The 18 singers also contributed to the 6-part Gloria exclamation from the angels praising God to the shepherds; this is one of eight intermedia where the text is given personalisation – the solitary angel of Katharina Hochheiser addressing the shepherds, later prompting Joseph to exile in Egypt, then ordering him home; an alto/tenor sextet for the shepherds’ response, a tenor trio for the Wise Men questioning the Child’s whereabouts, all four Gombert basses representing the priests and scribes, Michael Strasser’s solo bass for Herod.

Vaughan McAlley’s tenor was not over-pressed by the Evangelist’s line, which is easy-going compared to the same role in the Christmas Oratorio, not to mention the St. Matthew Passion marathon which McAlley has sung with other groups. His voice is clear, the notes accurately centred, but the actual timbre, the vocal quality lacks assurance and comes across as studied; not tentative, as the singer knows the task in hand, yet lacking that fluency which urges the narrative forward. Hochheiser’s first angelic address made a positive impact of agility, but for a fair while I could not distinguish any specific word: fricatives, plosives, consonants of any kind were absent from the vocal output which had only two Baroque violins vying for attention. Better followed with the semi-recitative encouragements to Joseph and a less aggressive string support.

Still, the impression of Schutz’s score in this reading was of an often dour construct, lightened by the choral bracketing. La Compania contributed with a flawless sonic mix that could have been amplified to the fabric’s benefit, particularly with some woodwind colour like recorders or a buzzing dulcian or two.

In the night’s second part, the ensemble sang three Michael Praetorius motets: the rarely-heard Jesaia dem Propheten das geschah, and two more familiar workings of well-known melodies in the double-choir Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her and the impressive 9-part Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern. Full fruits of the Venetian school and the Gabrielis’ influence, these sumptuous complexes brought a seasonal richness to the Gomberts’ celebration, balancing the spartan directness of Schutz’s bare-bones narrative with its very welcome interpolations. Despite the body’s modest numbers, O’Donnell’s ensemble handles these grand soundscapes with more elegance and clarity than most other bodies with many times the number of participants.

O’Donnell introduced the two final anthems with a Pachelbel chorale-prelude for Von Himmel hoch and a solid Buxtehude chorale fantasia on Wir schon leuchtet; both tests of digital exactness and linear distinction. For this music, you could not hope for a more informed and able executant.

Post-concert, the night took a turn for the bizarre when the audience found that Xavier’s security operations – with both the Ensemble Gombert and the Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra at work in the grounds – had closed off the gates. It’s one way to treat your guests, I suppose, but suggests an unnerving lack of consideration for others that stands clearly in opposition to the college’s self-proclaimed aim of producing career altruists.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of http://oconnellthemusic.com/

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

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

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