Concert 2: Saturday 29 March at 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Rd, Kew
Subscription Concert 2
Some of the composers represented here were Austrian imports while others were home grown. But all works were composed in Austria, some for Catholic liturgical use, Brahms’s motets possibly for Lutheran use, Schubert’s Hebrew setting of the 92nd Psalm for the Jewish synagogue, while the Isaac, Vaet and Schoenberg works are non-liturgical. Of course Austria’s best-known sacred music consists of Masses for soloists, choir and orchestra, but this program shows that there was also a fine a cappella tradition spanning the centuries.
| Program | |
|---|---|
| Heinrich Isaac | Virgo prudentissima |
| Jacobus Vaet | Continuo lacrimas |
| Philippe de Monte | Super flumina Babylonis |
| Johann Stadlmayr | O magnum mysterium |
| Johann Fux | Three Offertoria: Ad te, Domine, levavi Ave Maria, gratia plena Tollite portas |
| Johann Ernst Eberlin | Two Offertoria Bonum est confiteri Domino Improperium exspectavit cor meum |
| Arnold Schoenberg | Friede auf Erden |
| Franz Schubert | Der 92. Psalm |
| Johannes Brahms | Drei Motetten, Opus 110 |
SINGERS
| Soprano Deborah Summerbell Carol Veldhoven Katherine Norman 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, 1 April 2014, The Age [Melbourne], n.p.
Singers traverse years in the Ensemble Gombert’s Five Centuries of Austrian a capella sacred music
Clive O’Connell
Five Centuries of Austrian A Cappella Sacred Music
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel
March 29
John O’Donnell’s excellent choral group covered a vast field and unearthed some surprises. The Gomberts rarely disappoint, carrying along some stodgy material through a thorough professionalism and uniformity of timbre generally sustained for lengthy paragraphs, if not entire works.
O’Donnell began his cross-centuries journey with the motet Virgo prudentissima by Heinrich Isaac, a striking six-line structure that oscillates between duets for upper voices and massive complexes that manage to sound static on top and seething with action under the surface. This work set a high benchmark, sustained through a following clutch of briefer pieces.
A set of three offertoria by Johann Fux showed the teacher of counterpoint putting theory into heavy-handed practice. With a lurch into the 19th century, matters improved through Schubert’s venture into Hebrew, a setting of Psalm 92 distinguished for its robust reverence.
The Three Motets Op. 110 by Brahms are better known and combined melodic generosity with emotional compression. The most difficult music-making came in Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden, packed with harmonic stumbling blocks and a linear mesh that never stops challenging its executants. These singers produced a fluent and level-headed reading, working through its uncompromising linear argument with exemplary dedication.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age