Saturday, 9 September 2006, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 4
Michael Praetorius was of the opinion that music had reached its perfection in his day amongst Protestant German composers (presumably himself included). This program allows us to consider his claim as we experience one of his most brilliant double-choir chorales along with settings of Psalm 116 by two of his contemporaries. These works are followed by two undisputed masterpieces, Schütz’s remarkable Musicalische Exequien, a German Requiem pre-dating Brahms’ by over two centuries, and Bach’s much-loved motet Jesu, meine Freude.
| Program | |
|---|---|
| Johann Hermann Schein | Das ist mir lieb |
| Christoph Demantius | Das ist mir lieb |
| Michael Praetorius | Jesaia dem Propheten das geschah |
| Heinrich Schütz | Musicalische Exequien |
| Johann Sebastian Bach | Jesu, meine Freude |
| SOPRANO | ALTO | TENOR | BASS |
| Deborah Summerbell | Jennifer Mathers | Peter Campbell | Alexander Roose |
| Carol Veldhoven | Belinda Wong | Tim Van Nooten | Philip Nicholls |
| Fiona Seers | Niki Ebacioni | Vaughan McAlley | Tom Reid |
| Kathryn Pisani | Rebecca Woods | Stuart Tennant | Tim Daly |
| Maria Pisani | |||
| Claerwen Jones |
REVIEWS
Tuesday, 15 September 2006, The Age [Melbourne], page 15.
German Baroque goes a cappella as Mozart continues to please
Clive O’Connell
THIS week, the Ensemble Gombert leaves on its second tour of Europe and Saturday night’s recital served as
a fair illustration of the a cappella ensemble’s current state of practice. In a program of German Baroque
music, the singers were put through some difficult paces by director John O’Donnell, really extended in the
Musicalishe Exequien by Schutz: a far-ranging compendium of texts about death, set with imaginative
freedom and breadth.
These exequies conclude with a chordal motet and a short fusing of the Song of Simeon with verses from the
Apocalypse and the Book of Wisdom. The main part is a lengthy concerto alternating full choir and solo
voices, which showed off some of the Gomberts as individuals. Not all were uniformly successful in exposed
roles but these interpolated sentences for small groups achieved the composer’s aim of using the concerto
format – opposing small groups with large mass – and O’Donnell kept the work moving rapidly and sustained
the high standards of vocal colour, balance and security that distinguish this body.
The program began with a psalm setting by Schein, an idiosyncratic Sanctus by Praetorius, and ended with
Bach’s famous five-voice motet, Jesu, meine Freude, notable for a crystal-clear account of the central fugue,
here handled with telling sprightliness. […]
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age