Tuesday 11 March 1997 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew
Subscription Series Concert No 1
PROGRAM
Johannes Ockeghem Missa My my
Kyrie – Gloria – Credo – Sanctus – Agnus Dei
Antoine Busnois In hydraulis
Loyset Compère Omnium bonorum plena
Antoine Brumel Lamentations
i: Heth. Cogitavit Dominus
ii: Caph. Defecerunt prae lacrimis
Pierre de la Rue Missa pro fedlibus defunctis
Introitus – Kyrie – Tractus: Sicut Cervus – Offertorium: Domine Jesu Christe – Agnus Dei – Communio: Lux Aeterna
Josquin Desprez Nymphes des bois
| Soprano | Alto | Tenor | Bass |
| Deborah Summerbell | Helena Simpson |
Peter Nesutupny | Adrian Phillips |
| Carol Veldhoven | Lynette Richardson | Michael Stevens | Andrew Williams |
| Maria Pisani | Margaret Arnold | Philip Legge | Andrew Fysh |
| Fiona Seers | Grantley McDonald | Jerzy Kozlowski |
–
REVIEW
Monday 17 March 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 7.
Choir retains poise in the face of Ockeghem
Clive O’Connell
STARTING its annual subscription series, John O’Donnell’s Ensemble Gombert paid “quingentennial tribute”
to Johannes Ockeghem, who died 500 years ago.
After his Mass Mi mi, we heard contemporary tributes to Ockeghem’s stature and impact on his peers:
Busnois’s In hydraulis, where Ockeghem is lauded above all other composers alive; Compere’s Omnium
bonorum plena, where he is just one of the pack, if in good company; and Josquin Desprez’s eloquent
deploration that mourns Ockeghem’s death.
Filling the night out were Pierre de la Rue’s Requiem Mass and Brumel’s brief Lamentations, both building
further on an already elegiac framework.
The choir has retained its masterly poise and most of its personnel. The altos are down to three, which is
manageable, as the soprano quartet is not aggressive; Grantley McDonald has returned to reinforce the tenors;
and the four basses show a remarkable unanimity of attack and smooth ensemble that must be the envy of
every other body in the city.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age
Friday 14 March 1997, The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 75.
Master class in new season
Johanna Selleck
MASTER Renaissance composer Johannes Ockeghem was honored when Ensemble Gombert opened its
1997 subscription series.
The concert was testimony to the universal appeal of music from that era.
The program celebrated the 500th anniversary of Ockeghem’s death. All the works had some, albeit distant,
connection to him.
Sublimely homogenous on the surface yet also infinitely varied, his music is full of wonderful paradoxes.
The performance highlighted these, while dealing with the acoustic of the Xavier College Chapel, which is
equally as cruel as it is kind.
It rounds off phrases more perfectly than can be achieved through modern technology, while at the same time
amplifying the slightest imperfection or hesitancy.
The latter occurred in the opening of Brumel’s Lamentations, and in the Sanctus of Ockeghem’s Missa my
my, where there was a slight but noticeable pitch disagreement among the tenors.
Director John O’Donnell says Ensemble Gombert has cultivated distinct sonorities for each voice.
The delicate tone of the trebles contrasts with a harder, heavier sonority of the basses – yet the result could
not be more beautifully or consistently blended, as in Josquin Desprez’s Nymphe des Bois.
A constant dynamic level is required throughout, yet when well executed, this only serves to highlight every
subtle change in texture or vocal combination.
There were numerous highlights, many involving the altos, who were particularly strong in carrying the
melodic line.
Their ability to adjust and blend was shown most clearly in the alto and soprano duo in the Agnus Dei from
Missa my my and in the bass and alto duo in Loyset Compere’s Omnium Bonorum Plena.