Category: Concerts

Saturday 13 December 2003, 8 pm
Sunday 14 December 2003, 2.30 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

Our Christmas to Candlemas program commences in twentieth-century France with Poulenc’s four motets for the Christmas season, before settling in Tudor England.

PROGRAM

Francis Poulenc Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël
Thomas Tallis Hodie nobis caelorum Rex
John Sheppard Reges Tharsis et insulae
William Byrd Hodie beata virgo Maria
William Byrd Senex puerum portabat
Gregorian chant Puer natus est nobis
Thomas Tallis Missa Puer natus est nobis

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	James Scott
Margaret Pearce	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Andrew Fysh
Claerwen Jones		Stuart Tennant	Tom Reid
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

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REVIEW

Thursday, 18 December 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 8, A3.
Deserving of international success
Clive O’Connell

For the ninth consecutive year, Melbourne’s pre-eminent chamber choir presented a Christmas recital with a
combination of semi-contemporary French and English Renaissance music.
As director John O’Donnell observed, it is rare to hear a high-calibre performance of serious ecclesiastical
music in a Melbourne concert hall. Not even Handel’s Messiah qualifies, as its content and provenance are
more readily associated with Easter. Poulenc’s Quatre motets pour le temps de Noel have made little inroads
into real-time services in Christian churches, although their harmonic language is simple and consonant, and
the melodic motives of O magnum mysterium and Videntes stellam live in the memory well after a performance.
Despite their focus on 16th-century music, the Gomberts have an enviable ability to move across many styles.
Indeed, the spare beauty of the four Poulenc pieces, with their bursts of full-bodied consonance and a
forefronting of the soprano line that harks back to a much earlier time, fitted the ensemble’s personnel most
congenially, as did the cool restraint of the works’ emotional content.
The major part of the recital featured earlier music: a motet by Tallis, Reges Tharsis et insulae by his
neglected contemporary John Sheppard, and two pieces for the Feast of the Purification, Candlemas itself, by
Byrd.
Bringing up the rear were the Christmas plainchant Puer natus est nobis and the recently discovered and
edited Mass by Tallis based on it. This work, in seven parts, must rank as one of the most awe-inspiring
examples of Catholic church music from pre-Elizabethan England.
Its majestic progression, the startling spikiness of its false-relation harmonic clashes and the sumptuous
spread of its lines made it a memorable example of the Gomberts’ mastery of idiom and reliability of pitch.
Of course, there were momentary indications of fatigue, notably from the tenors who are cruelly stretched at
various points. But you could overlook this when faced with the even spread and audibility of line, qualities
achieved mainly through the director’s acute awareness of the relative vocal strengths of each member in his
forces.
No wonder the Gomberts are anxious to display their talents overseas, particularly in Britain, where the purity
and precision of their sound would surely meet with an enthusiastic reception.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 7 November, 8 pm, St Ambrose Church, Woodend
Saturday 8 November, 8 pm, Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Concert 4

In our fourth concert you can hear all Brahms’ motets as well as two Bach favourites—Komm, Jesu, komm and Jesu, meine Freude.

PROGRAM

Johann Sebastian Bach Komm, Jesu, komm
Johann Sebastian Bach Jesu, meine Freude
Johannes Brahms Zwei Motetten, opus 29
1. ‘Es ist das Heil uns kommen her’
2. ‘Aus dem 51. Psalm’
Johannes Brahms Zwei Motetten, opus 74
1. ‘Warum ist das Licht gegeben’
2. ‘O Heiland, reiß die Himmel auf’
Johannes Brahms Fest- und Gedenksprüche, opus 109
1. ‘Unsere Väter hofften auf dich’
2. ‘Wenn ein starker Gewappneter’
3. ‘Wo ist ein so herrlich Volk’
Johannes Brahms Drei Motetten, opus 110
1. ‘Ich aber bin elend’
2. ‘Ach, arme Welt’
3. ‘Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten sein’

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Thomas Drent
Margaret Pearce	Niki Ebacioni	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Kate McBride	Susie Furphy	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Kathryn Pisani
Claerwen Jones
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

–
REVIEW

Tuesday, 11 November 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 7, A3.
An ensemble on song even in new fields
Clive O’Connell

Moving some way out of their comfort zone, John O’Donnell and the Ensemble Gombert sang Brahms on
Saturday evening. The singers stayed clear of the folk-song choruses and romantic poetry settings in the
composer’s list of works, focusing on the sets of motets that stretch across Brahms’s creative life.
These four groups of works range from simple harmonisations to complex variations on a specific chorale to
original compositions with extraordinarily complex inner workings that would do credit to a master such as
Isaac, but which avoid sounding crabbed and academic, thanks to their in-built power and contrapuntal
terseness.
Brahms’s motets show the necessity for a kinder, more balanced assessment as the frequent fugues and
canons become justifiable means to an emotionally rich end: not arid exercises for their own sake but
dynamic passages woven into the religious text settings, some of them dramatic and large-scale such as
Warum ist das Licht gegeben, others such as Es ist das Heil and the moving Ach, arme Welt harnessing
superb craftsmanship to an impressive and vital statement with considerable breadth of humanity.
In the pursuit of dynamic balance, O’Donnell slightly expanded his soprano forces to eight singers, using four
only for the other three voice-types. Despite this minor adjustment of personnel, once again the Gomberts
demonstrated a near-ideal balance of lines, each part audible and distinguishable, even in massive sound
blocks such as powered out from the ensemble during the noble Fest-und Gedenkspruche Op. 109 that I was
hearing live for the first time.
The first half of the night was given over to two Bach motets: the insistent Komm, Jesu, komm and the
large-scale 11 movements that comprise Jesu, meine Freude. Parallels between the two German masters were
there to be drawn in the varied compositional devices employed, the juxtapositions and internal alterations of
texture, the application and resolution of fugue and canon, the creativity in the myriad changes that can be
rung on very simple elements.
The singers maintained their energy throughout the night, at the same time serving notice to Gombert
Ensemble admirers that their normal association with Renaissance choral music is not the whole story: their
talents are just as impressive when exercised on music that comes from several centuries outside their usual
repertoire.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 13 September 2003, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

PROGRAM

Cristóbal de Morales Gaude et laetare ferrariensis civitas
Cristóbal de Morales Lamentabatur Jacob
Francisco Guerrero Ave virgo sanctissima
Francisco Guerrero Salve regina
Tomás Luis de Victoria Ecce sacerdos magnus
Tomás Luis de Victoria O lux et decus Hispaniae
Tomás Luis de Victoria Surrexit pastor bonus
Tomás Luis de Victoria Missa pro defunctis

Note: Morales ‘Christus resurgens’ and ‘Officium defunctorum’ were advertised in subscription brochure but not performed. They were replaced by the Victoria ‘Missa pro defunctis’.

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	James Scott
Margaret Pearce	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Fiona Seers

–
REVIEW

Wednesdsay, 17 September 2003, The Age [Melbourne], page 14, A3.
Gomberts excellent; Rowell impressive in attack
Clive O’Connell

The Ensemble Gombert did a side-step at their latest subscription recital, Spanish Renaissance Gems. In the
program of works by Morales, Guerrero and Victoria, the scheduled motet Christus resurgens by Morales
disappeared; more importantly, so did the same composer’s Office of the Dead, in place of which the
organisation offered Victoria’s Requiem Mass. The liturgical intentions might have been similar, but the Mass
is well-known, the Office rarely heard live.
Nevertheless, the night involved the expected professional display from this body, which now has an
unusually solid tenor rank. There are new faces in the alto section, but the line remains well-founded; bass
Andrew Fysh has found reinforcements for his dark colour in some fresh colleagues.
The sopranos now number six, the largest group in the ensemble. There is an odd practice among the
top-most voices of one of the singers making a slight swoop on to high phrase-starting notes, which grated.
The performances were thoroughly enjoyable, reaching a captivating climax in the final Agnus Dei of the
sombre Victoria Mass, but preceded by a interplay in the same composer’s O lux et decus Hispaniae, a superb
example of how to extol a mediocre character; and the sombre ruefulness of Morales’s plaintive motet
Lamentabatur Jacob. Another excellent exhibition from the ensemble.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 8 March 2003, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 1

Concert 1 balances Tallis and Byrd in Lenten vein with Rubbra’s festive Lauda Sion and Vaughan Williams’ much-loved Mass in G minor.

PROGRAM

Thomas Tallis Te lucis ante terminum (2 versions)
Thomas Tallis In ieiunio et fletu
Thomas Tallis Derelinquat impius
Thomas TallisIn manus tuas
William Byrd Tribulationes civitatum
William Byrd Ne irascaris, Domine
William Byrd Vide, Domine, afflictionem nostram
Edmund Rubbra Lauda Sion
Vaughan Williams Mass in G minor

Note: Byrd ‘Circumspice, Hierusalem’ advertised in subscription brochure but not performed.

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jenny George	Tim Van Nooten	James Scott
Margaret Pearce	Margaret Arnold	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Helen Gagliano

–
REVIEW

Friday, 14 March 2003,The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
Ancient choral works create piercing modern emotion
Clive O’Connell

In an English Polyphony Old and New program to begin their year’s subscription series, John O’Donnell and
his Ensemble Gombert performed five motets by Tallis and three by Byrd; none of them familiar pieces, even
considering the few choral works from Tudor times that have reached some level of familiarity.
Just as rarely heard is Edmund Rubbra’s Lauda Sion setting, although O’Donnell has given performances of
most of the British symphonist’s choral music with various choirs over the past decade. Luckily, the Gombert
voices were capable of standing up to the occasionally bracing demands of this striving, emotionally
expansive work.
During the night’s first part, the choir excelled in the Byrd works, all expressive of the fears felt by a recusant
living through the time of Elizabeth I.
In the driving grandeur of Tribulationes civitatum, the obsessive picture of desolation that concludes Ne
irascaris, Domine and the acerbic harmonic clashes of Vide, Domine, the composer depicted the uncertainty
and unrest resulting from religious and political clashes, in his and our own times.
The Gomberts found few difficulties with the Tallis sequence but the angular wide-spaced textures of Byrd’s
“Babylon” motets, drawing comparisons between threatened Catholics and the Jews in captivity, gave the
best possible evidence of the group’s admirable ability to express piercing emotion with unflustered clarity.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 14 December 2002, 8pm
Sunday, 15 December 2002, 2.30pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

Our annual carol-free Christmas concert is this year devoted to Lassus, recognized as the greatest master of the Late Renaissance both in his time and ours.

PROGRAM

Orlande de Lassus Resonet in laudibus
Orlande de Lassus Quem vidistis pastores
Orlande de LassusVerbum caro factum est
Orlande de Lassus In principio erat verbum
Orlande de Lassus Mirabile mysterium
Orlande de Lassus Omnes de Saba venient
Orlande de LassusVidentes stellam
Orlande de Lassus Adorna thalamum
Orlande de Lassus Nunc dimittis primi toni Il magnanimo Pietro
Orlande de Lassus Magnificat super Praeter rerum seriem
Orlande de Lassus Missa In principio

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jenny George	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Niki Ebacioni	Tim Van Nooten	Sam Furphy
Margaret Pearce	Margaret Arnold	Vaughan McAlley	Darren Parer
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani
Fiona Seers

–
REVIEW

Tuesday, 17 December 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
Handel’s pacy, pared-down Christmas favourite
Clive O’Connell

FOR its final Christmas to Candlemas recital, the Ensemble Gombert sang music by Orlando de Lassus: four
Christmas Day motets, one for the Feast of the Circumcision, two for Epiphany and another two relevant to
the Feast of the Purification. Rather than take an interval, John O’Donnell kept his forces singing for the final
Magnificat and the Mass In Principio.
The prolific Renaissance composer’s timbre or sound quality is not as consonant or smooth in its harmonic
fluidity as Palestrina’s sacred music, nor as sparely striving as that of Victoria.
In fact, the main impression from this evening’s work proved to be Lassus’ unexpectedly high
experimentation level; whether it was in sudden harmonic swerves, or the removal of basses from the fabric,
or a whole passage devoted to exploiting low choral voices, there was usually something to rouse the
listener’s interest.
Of course, this music is a specialised choral genre, far removed from what most of us will hear in churches
over the coming week.
Yet, for all the felicity of the composer’s writing in which dramatic effect and form make equable partners,
these works present even superior bodies like the Gomberts with tests – on this night, chiefly of balance in the
weight given to each voice and its subdivisions.
For every section of this 14-part program, the group maintained their impressive articulation, faltering on
very few occasions.
We have heard scraps of this music before, but O’Donnell and his singers are always exploring new
expansions of their repertoire.
On this night, the Mass took the honours by producing an affecting, searchlight-clear extended sequence in
this worthwhile and cleverly cast Lassus retrospective.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Sunday, 8 December 2002.
Hawthorn Town Hall, Hawthorn

The Mozart Collection
Presented by The Academy of Melbourne

PROGRAM

Jeremiah Clarke Prince of Denmark’s March
GF Handel Eternal Source of Light Divine
GF Handel Let the Bright Seraphim
CPE Bach Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, W. 23.
Antonio Vivaldi Magnificat
Antonio Vivaldi Gloria

Ensemble Gombert personnel unknown

The Academy of Melbourne
Angela Brewer – soprano
Tristram Williams – trumpet
Vicki Philipson – oboe
Margaret Pearce – soprano
Fiona Seers – soprano
Claerwen Jones – soprano
John O’Donnell – harpsichord
Brett Kelly – conductor

REVIEW

Tuesday, 10 December 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 4, The Culture.
No baroque amplification necessary as arrangement strikes a chord
Clive O’Connell

[…]
Vivaldi’s Magnificat and Gloria involved the collaboration of the Ensemble Gombert at the Academy of
Melbourne’s last Mozart Collection concert on Sunday. Neither work stretches a choir, least of all one as
inured as the Gombert’s to improbably difficult and complex Renaissance works.Conductor Brett Kelly employed a small orchestra of 14 strings for the afternoon, backing Tristram Williams’
trumpet for the Prince of Denmark’s March, the combination of Williams and soprano Angela Brewer for
some Handel arias – Eternal Source of Light Divine and Let the Bright Seraphim – followed by John
O’Donnell’s account of C.P.E. Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, W. 23.
Little of this raised the temperature to any notable degree. The March is lollipop-sized; Brewer had obvious
problems in finding breath to last through the extended scale passages of both arias. While there is an
occasionally intriguing element in the Bach concerto with some abrupt turns and sudden harmonic shifts, the
interest stays on a scholarly level, with several extended passages containing a determined working-out of
material but little else to engage attention.
For the two Vivaldi works, the Ensemble Gombert sang dutifully if not with that cloud-piercing finesse that it
shows in its subscription series.
The solo passages, taken by choir members, revealed occasional bursts of colour or individuality. Among
these, Margaret Pearce’s two solos in the Gloria showed a soprano voice of marked individuality, while the
duets of Claerwen Jones and Fiona Seers in both works were pleasurable because of the appealing
combination of two fresh and unspoiled high voices.
Yet the overall impression was of easy music-making, the academy strings playing with restrained power,
particularly notable for their truth of intonation in passages that required no vibrato.
Some instrumental spice was supplied by oboe Vicki Philipson and William’s trumpet, reduced to near-reed
status for the final work. Generally clean and precise, the Vivaldi double-bill made for pleasant listening but
brought the Mozart Collection series to an oddly low-key conclusion.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 7 September 2002, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 4

Two of these Roberts were certainly Scottish, while the birth place of Wylkynson is not known. The latter’s resplendent nine-voice Salve regina is one of the glories of the Eton Choirbook, while Carver’s brilliant ten-voice
Mass was almost certainly composed for the accession of James V of Scotland on the Feast of Michaelmas 1513. Though Scottish by birth, Johnson spent most of his working life in England. Our program includes the four most popular of his ten extant motets.

PROGRAM

Robert Wylkynson Salve regina
Robert Johnson Ave Dei patris filia
Robert Johnson Dum transisset Sabbatum
Robert Johnson Gaude Maria virgo
Robert Johnson Deus misereatur nostri
Robert Carver Missa Dum sacrum mysterium

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	JennyGeorge	Peter Campbell	Jonathan Wallis
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Ross Abraham
Margaret Pearce	Margaret Arnold	Vaughan McAlley	Thomas Drent
Claerwen Jones	Susie Furphy	Stuart Tennant	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani		Frank Prain	Jerzy Kozlowski
Fiona Seers

–
REVIEW

Monday, 9 September 2002, The Age [Melbourne], page 5, The Culture.
Voices that take your breath away
Clive O’Connell

[…] No such troubles on the following night for the Ensemble Gombert, singing under the high dome of the
Xavier Chapel.
John O’Donnell directed the program of three Renaissance composers called Robert, all English or Scots.
As both the opening motet and the program’s main work called for nine and 10 voices, we heard from a
slightly expanded group of expert singers, with alto Margaret Arnold and bass Jerzy Kozlowski back in
harness, tenors Frank Prain and Tim van Nooten appearing again after their previous night’s exertions for
Gloriana.
Complicated constructs like Wylkynson’s Salve Regina hold no fears for these singers who have more mature
voices than are found in most other Melbourne choirs.
O’Donnell leaves these works to make their own statements, avoiding any over-dramatising of music that is often astoundingly powerful, the top lines soaring over a boiling, energetic maelstrom of tenors and basses.
The use that Wylkynson makes of his nine layers results in organ-rich mixtures, mirrored in the
near-contemporaneous Mass Dum sacrum mysterium by Carver, which also heaps up strand upon strand and
suddenly cuts away to reveal various strata, like a passage for three basses in the work’s Sanctus.
Also programmed were four motets by Johnson, climaxing in a joyous set of praises to the Virgin, Ave Dei
patris.
True, not all the singing was free from trouble; some of the bass notes in the Mass were suspect and the
opening to the Agnus Dei sounded hesitant.
But when operating at full power, this choir makes you hold your breath in admiration at the vital richness of
their sound world, a never-failing pleasure in the year’s musical round.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age