Saturday, 8 March 2003, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 1
Concert 1 balances Tallis and Byrd in Lenten vein with Rubbra’s festive Lauda Sion and Vaughan Williams’ much-loved Mass in G minor.
PROGRAM
Thomas Tallis Te lucis ante terminum (2 versions)
Thomas Tallis In ieiunio et fletu
Thomas Tallis Derelinquat impius
Thomas TallisIn manus tuas
William Byrd Tribulationes civitatum
William Byrd Ne irascaris, Domine
William Byrd Vide, Domine, afflictionem nostram
Edmund Rubbra Lauda Sion
Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor
Note: Byrd ‘Circumspice, Hierusalem’ advertised in subscription brochure but not performed.
| SOPRANO | ALTO | TENOR | BASS |
| Deborah Summerbell | Jennifer Mathers | Peter Campbell | Jonathan Wallis |
| Carol Veldhoven | Jenny George | Tim Van Nooten | James Scott |
| Margaret Pearce | Margaret Arnold | Vaughan McAlley | Tom Reid |
| Claerwen Jones | Susie Furphy | Stuart Tennant | Andrew Fysh |
| Maria Pisani | |||
| Helen Gagliano |
–
REVIEW
Friday, 14 March 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
Ancient choral works create piercing modern emotion
Clive O’Connell
In an English Polyphony Old and New program to begin their year’s subscription series, John O’Donnell and
his Ensemble Gombert performed five motets by Tallis and three by Byrd; none of them familiar pieces, even
considering the few choral works from Tudor times that have reached some level of familiarity.
Just as rarely heard is Edmund Rubbra’s Lauda Sion setting, although O’Donnell has given performances of
most of the British symphonist’s choral music with various choirs over the past decade. Luckily, the Gombert
voices were capable of standing up to the occasionally bracing demands of this striving, emotionally
expansive work.
During the night’s first part, the choir excelled in the Byrd works, all expressive of the fears felt by a recusant
living through the time of Elizabeth I.
In the driving grandeur of Tribulationes civitatum, the obsessive picture of desolation that concludes Ne
irascaris, Domine and the acerbic harmonic clashes of Vide, Domine, the composer depicted the uncertainty
and unrest resulting from religious and political clashes, in his and our own times.
The Gomberts found few difficulties with the Tallis sequence but the angular wide-spaced textures of Byrd’s
“Babylon” motets, drawing comparisons between threatened Catholics and the Jews in captivity, gave the
best possible evidence of the group’s admirable ability to express piercing emotion with unflustered clarity.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age