Concert 3: Saturday 10 May at 5.30 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Rd, Kew
Subscription Concert 3
Music for double choir immediately conjures up Venice in many minds, but most of the famed Venetian repertoire involves instruments as well as voices. This program surveys double-choir music of various parts of Europe from the late Renaissance to the early twentieth century. The major work is the wonderful Frank Martin Mass, which returns to our repertoire a decade after our first performance of it.
| Program | |
|---|---|
| Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina | Laudate Dominum omnes gentes |
| Orlande de Lassus | Osculetur me |
| Tomás Luis de Victoria | Regina caeli laetare |
| Michael Praetorius | Gott der Vater wohn uns bei |
| Johann Sebastian Bach | Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied |
| Johannes Brahms | Fest- und Gedenksprüche, Opus 109 |
| William Henry Harris | Faire is the heaven |
| Frank Martin | Mass for Double Choir |
SINGERS
| Soprano Deborah Summerbell Carol Veldhoven Katherine Norman Katherine Lieschke Maria Pisani Claerwen Jones Kathryn Pisani |
Alto Belinda Wong Yi Wen Chin Niki Ebacioni Rebecca Collins |
Tenor Peter Campbell Tim van Nooten Vaughan McAlley Stuart Tennant |
Bass Andrew Murray Thomas Bland Michael Strasser Mike Ormerod |
–
REVIEW
Tuesday, 13 May 2014, The Age [Melbourne], n.p.
Ensemble Gombert’s sumptuous singing spans centuries of change
Clive O’Connell
Music for Double Choir
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
May 10
In an often sumptuous exhibition, John O’Donnell and his Ensemble Gombert rang the cross-centuries changes on Western music for two choirs. On Saturday, the singers began with Palestrina and his contemporaries: Lassus in suggestive form with a Song of Songs extract, Victoria in an opulent Regina caeli, and a brief litany by Praetorius – bread-and-butter fare for these musicians.
Bach’s motet Singet dem Herrn emphasised the linear ferment that tests even experienced choirs. Taking a measured pace, O’Donnell combined the whirring activity of the composer’s web with tensile strength, the result a lesson in discipline and perseverance. The Fest-und Gedenkspruche from Brahms’ later years presented the lower voices with carefully negotiated hurdles.
Still, the evening’s main work, Frank Martin’s Mass for Double Choir found the Gombert sopranos in excellent shape, even in the high B stress-points of the Kyrie and Hosanna, the many part sub-divisions handled with admirable smoothness.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age