Saturday, 7 March 2015, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew
Subscription Concert 1
| Antoine Brumel | Laudate Dominum in caelis |
| Josquin Desprez | Huc me sydero descendere jussit Olympo |
| Jacob Obrecht | Laudemus nunc Dominum |
| Philippe Verdelot | Sancta Maria succurre |
| Nicolas Gombert | Missa Sancta Maria succurre Kyrie – Gloria |
| Jean Richafort | Miseremini mei |
| Nicolas Gombert | Missa Sancta Maria succurre Credo |
| Clemens non Papa | Ego flos campi |
| Nicolas Gombert | Missa Sancta Maria succurre Sanctus – Benedictus |
| Cristobal de Morales | Lamentabatur Jacob |
| Nicolas Gombert | Missa Sancta Maria succurre Agnus Dei |
| Jachet da Mantua | Dum vastos Adriae |
| Cotanzo Festa | Ave Regina caelorum |
SINGERS
| Soprano Deborah Summerbell Carol Veldhoven Katharina Hochheiser Claerwen Jones Kathryn Pisani Juliana Kay |
Alto Belinda Wong Yi Wen Chin Niki Ebacioni Jane Schleiger |
Tenor Peter Campbell Tim Van Nooten Matthew Thomson Stuart Tennant |
Bass Thomas Baldwin Chris Potter Mike Ormerod Michael Strasser |
REVIEW
Sunday, 8 March 2015, The Age [Melbourne], np
Ensemble Gombert review: Choral chords triumph amid rich Renaissance tapestry
Clive O’Connell
HIGH RENAISSANCE POLYPHONY ****
Ensemble Gombert
Xavier College Chapel, March 7
High indeed. In an unusually solid program, a feat of concentration even for this expert body, John O’Donnell and his singers unveiled Renaissance music that few of us would (or could) have heard in live performance.
Ensemble Gombert – Melbourne Early Music chamber choir, with director John O’Donnell.
Nine motets surrounded the various parts of Nicolas Gombert’s strikingly expressive Mass, Sancta Maria succurre; the night’s framework offering a study of contrasts between the rigour of substantial works by Brumel, Verdelot and Richafort and the relative sumptuousness of Festa’s Ave Regina caelorum and Clemens non Papa’s lustrous Ego flos campi setting: musical and textual metaphors and similes sustained in fine balance.
The sheer physical labour started to tell towards the recital’s midway point; Gombert’s closely interwoven lines for the creed testing the singers in the final paragraphs where the declarations of faith blend into each other.
The choral fabric becomes a thick tapestry where the top-line sopranos have the dominant colour while the lower parts move fleetingly in and out of focus. The effect comes close to numbing your capacity to rationalise the score’s progress but the Gomberts forged through this and other taut segments with dedication and accuracy.
During the opening items, you could have asked for a less nasal timbre from the basses, but this quartet was well sung-in by the time Morales’ familiar Lamentabatur Jaco arrived: a highlight of colour, despite a dodgy opening from the first tenors.
But as an opening to the group’s annual series, Saturday night substantiated its reputation for scholarship, technical ability and certainty of direction.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age