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.
| Program | |
|---|---|
| Heinrich Schütz | Weihnachtshistorie |
| Michael Praetorius | Jesaia dem Prophetem Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern |
SINGERS
| Soprano Deborah Summerbell Carol Veldhoven Victoria Brown Katharina Hochheiser Claerwen Jones Kathryn Pisani |
Alto Belinda Wong Juliana Kay Niki Ebacioni Yi Wen Chin |
Tenor Peter Campbell Tim van Nooten Vaughan McAlley Stuart Tennant |
Bass Nicholas Tolhurst Michael Strasser Mike Ormerod Andrew Fysh |
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/