Tuesday 21 May 1996, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew
Subscription series concert 2
PROGRAM
Nicolas Gombert Regina caeli laetare a 12
Nicolas Gombert O beata Maria a 5
Nicolas Gombert Magnificat octavi toni a 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8
Nicolas Gombert Credo a 8
Nicolas Gombert Mort et fortune a 4
Orlande de Lassus Magnificat tertii toni a 5 super Mort et fortune
Nicolas Gombert In illo tempore a 6
Claudio Monteverdi Missa da Capella a sei voci, fatta sopra il motetto In illo tempore del Gomberti
| SOPRANO | ALTO | TENOR | BASS |
| Deborah Summerbell | Katherine Wells | Phillip Legge | Adrian Phillips |
| Carol Veldhoven | Margaret Arnold | Andrew Green | Andrew Williams |
| Lisette Wesseling | Jennifer Mathers | Matthew Flood | Andrew Fysh |
| Fiona Seers | Lynette Richardson | Timothy O’Connor | Jerzy Kozlowski |
–
REVIEWS
Thursday, 23 May 1996, The Age [Melbourne], page 17.
Second round of suave elegance
Clive O’Connell
[…] IN A TYPICALLY taut and uncompromising program, the Ensemble Gombert under John O’Donnell paid
substantial tribute to its namesake with a concert of religious music, slightly leavened by a brief Gombert
chanson, Mort et fortune. The night’s most substantial segment came with Monteverdi’s Missa da Capella for
six parts.
As usual, the ensemble impressed with its assured attack, showing an uncompromising self-confidence that
rarely failed.
In music that moved from a simple four lines to 12, these singers relentlessly forged a massive web of choral
sound; if the fabric occasionally showed some rough patches, these were soon compensated for in
tapestry-thick polyphony, the like of which is rarely heard in this city.The ensemble’s number is back to 16, the tenors at full complement once more. Versatile bass Adrian Phillips
still helps them out when the upper male voices split into two sections.
But, in spite of some changes in personnel over the last year, O’Donnell still produces a rich spread of
registers from his forces.
The Ensemble Gombert’s music is complex in construction, peppered with harmonic clashes, rigorous in its
vocal discipline – and its colors shift subtly, not sharply.
The Gomberts sing with a confidence and purity that take their listeners back 400 years to an age of
astonishing musical craft and intellectual vision.
Clive O’Connell/ Courtesy of The Age
Monday, 27 May 1996 , The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 79.
Vocal banquet whets appetite
Keith Field
GLORIOUS, unaccompanied singing brought many of Melbourne’s choral gourmets to Xavier College
Chapel in “Hommage To Gombert “, a banquet of vocal items by the consummate Renaissance master,
Nicholas Gombert.
John O’Donnell’s Gombert Singers may well claim to be the finest a capella ensemble working in Australia.
Their 16 voices are finely matched, trained to hold pitch with pinpoint accuracy and magnificently
disciplined in precise interplay.
Four solo singers sang Gombert’s Death and Fortune, a fluent chanson which provided melodic fragments for
a five-part Magnificat by Lassus, his great Flemish compatriot.
Monteverdi chose phrases from Gombert’s six-part motet, At That Time, as basis for a Mass, written to
satisfy conservative Roman expectations.
Other Gombert compositions for combinations between two and 12 parts demonstrated his skill, keen ear for
euphony and fervent emotional expression.
O’Donnell’s championship of authentic performance practice was especially fascinating.