Category: Concerts

Tuesday 29 April 1997 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Series Concert No 2

PROGRAM

Gregorian chant Victimae paschali laudes
Mozarabic chant Gaudete populi
Heinrich Isaac Resurrexi
Adrian Willaert Victimae paschali laudes
Nicolas Gombert Regina caeli
Nicolas Gombert Haec dies
Nicolas Gombert Ego sum qui sum
Nicolas Gombert Expurgate vetus fermentum
Nicolas Gombert Missa Tempore paschali

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REVIEW

Tuesday 6 May 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 5.
A few artists form festival backbone
Clive O’Connell

[…] ENSEMBLE GOMBERT’S latest recital focused on music by their namesake: four motets and the masterly
Mass for Eastertide. The group was severely extended by the 12-part Regina caeli and the Mass’s final Agnus
Dei, also in 12 lines. But the effect was as massive as polychoral Gabrieli. The composer changes slowly in
these thick-textured works, letting his listeners bask in the sumptuous splendor of music that folds in and out
on simple chordal bases, a kind of sonic imitation of the heavenly choir at its endless praise.
Some chants (Gregorian and Mozarabic) and Willaert’s Victimae paschali setting also featured, but a more
interesting event came early on in Isaac’s six-part Resurrexi. This composer has a deserved reputation as an
intellectual, standing out in a galaxy of luminaries whose works speak a more easily legible emotional
language.
The Gomberts made a persuasive argument for more performances of this neglected composer, lacking the
emphatic splendor of Willaert or the emotional bite of Gombert with his pre-cadential harmonic clashes;
Isaac’s vocal works use intentionally limited material with extraordinary economy. It makes for difficult
singing, but the Gomberts’ high standard of articulation and confident sound continue to gladden all present at their concerts. […]
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 2 May 1997 , The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 71.
High and mighty Gombert hits the mark
Johanna Selleck

THE turquoise and black uniforms of the Ensemble Gombert graced the altar of  Xavier College Chapel in Kew for a liturgical celebration of “Eastertide”.
The concert left the audience with a lasting impression of the overwhelming serenity of the music, and the
consistently high standard of professionalism that this ensemble maintains.
Ensemble Gombert, under director John O’Donnell, fills a void in Melbourne’s yearly concert program by
providing high-quality performances of Early Music, and in particular,
a capella Franco-Flemish music of the high renaissance.
The group’s namesake, Nicholas Gombert, was featured in the evening’s program which included his Haec
Dies (for the gradual of the Mass), and the 12-part motet Regina Caeli, among a sprinkling of other works.
In the opening work, Heinrich Isaac’s Resurrexi, all the usual traits of the ensemble were evident – the
accuracy, purity and blend, which together lent great clarity to the compact imitations.
The vitality was well maintained throughout the chant, Gaudete Populi.
Only by the end of the first half did the performance start to flag slightly, with the sopranos starting to sound
tired and not as finely tuned.
After interval the ensemble presented Gombert’s tour de force, Missa Tempore Paschali.
The “profound” Gombert, as he was described in his own time, was a great innovator, and his remarkable use
of dissonance is one area which leaps out, even at the modern listener.
The resolutions are all the more beautiful after the biting dissonances, though they require unswerving
definition and tuning, and occasionally this is not forthcoming.
A sense of insecurity or wavering at these critical moments can result in a more wayward sound than
intended.
Nevertheless, the overall effect was very fluid, and throughout the evening the dark colors favored by
Gombert were brought to life by notably strong performances in the basses and tenors.

Sunday 30 March 1997
St Mary’s Star of the Sea, Victoria St, West Melbourne

Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord

PROGRAM
Johannes Ockeghem Requiem
Johannes Brahms Opus 29, Opus 74 and Opus 110 motets

Singers unknown

REVIEWS

Wednesday 2 April The Age [Melbourne], page 5. (extract)
Early music sharing top billing in festival
Clive O’Connell

JOHN O’DONNELL’S Ensemble Gombert took the altar at St Mary’s Star of the Sea for a concert of even
more massive proportions than is its scholarly practice. This year is the 500th anniversary of the death of
Johannes Ockeghem, so the Gomberts sang the composer’s Requiem – the first polyphonic setting of this
Mass form – and three Marian motets.
This year is also the centenary of Brahms’s death and the ensemble moved into unexpected territory by
singing the Opus 29, Opus 74 and Opus 110 motets.
The texture verged on the thin side when the group had to split into eight parts for Opus 110’s Ich aber bin
elend and the eccentric Wenn wir in hochsten Noten sind. As well, the self-effacing quality in the sopranos
proved worrying in several of the massive blasts of orthodox harmonisation in these works.
But, with the 15th-century Flemish works, the Ensemble Gombert was in fine fettle.
In the Requiem, which uses no sopranos, the texture is lean. O’Donnell made no effort to “dress up” the
work’s bones but let his singers outline the sinews of Ockeghem’s intense, pure and exposed structure, made
all the richer when it blossomed into four-part harmony.
The festival continues at various locations – most near the city or at Melbourne University – until Saturday
night
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 4 April, The Australian [Sydney], page 12. (extract)
Melbourne International Festival of Organ and Harpsichord
Jeremy Vincent

[…] With its subtitled Early Music banner, the festival is able to include performances unrelated to either organ or harpsichord.The first of these was the appearance of Melbourne-based a capella choir Ensemble Gombert. These 16 voices directed by John O’Donnell delved into the 15th-century mastery of Johannes Ockegham before time-travelling to 19th-century Brahms. It was difficult to understand the choir’s delivery of Ockegham’s Latin text, though his strangely incomplete setting of the Requiem (lacking Sanctus, Agnus Dei and Communion) was a novel experience held up strongly by the women’s voices. Brahms fared better, the clarity beautifully judged and
the meld of the voices in seven motets wonderfully interwoven through its unfussed musical journey. Full of character and respect, this was a splendid tribute in all areas. […]

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

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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.

Tuesday 17 December 1996 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel Barkers Rd, Kew

Subscription series concert 5

PROGRAM

Nicolas Gombert  Hodie nobis caelorum Rex
Clemens non Papa  O magnum mysterium
Heinrich Isaac  Puer natus est nobis
Josquin Desprez   O admirabile commercium
Jacob Handl  Mirabile miraculum
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina    Hodie Christus natus est
Orlande de Lassus Omnes de Saba venient
Tomas Luis de Victoria   Senex puerum portabat
Gregorian chant (Sarum version) Puer natus est nobis
Thomas Tallis   Missa Puer natus est nobis
Gloria – Sanctus – Agnus Dei

REVIEWS

Friday, 20 December 1996, The Age [Melbourne], page 4.
Ensemble takes the pre-Christmas honors
Clive O’Connell

BRINGING up the tail-end of serious Christmas music concerts, the Ensemble Gombert, under John
O’Donnell, presented the most scholarly and far-ranging of the year’s seasonal crop, featuring music for the
feastday – and night – as well as motets written for the following celebrations of the Circumcision, Epiphany
and the Purification or Candlemas (at the start of February).
In their night’s substantial first half, the Gombert group sang extracts from the massive repertoire of Middle
and High Renaissance works, beginning with their patron’s Hodie nobis caelorum, and taking in works from
before and after Gombert’s productive years: Clemens non Papa, Isaac (the era’s inspired
mathematician-in-music), Josquin’s five-verse O admirabile commercium and a dissonance-rich Mirabile
mysterium by Jacob Handl. Then pieces by the mellifluous and most well-known composers appeared:
Palestrina’s Noel motet Hodie Christus natus est, Omnes de Saba venient by Lassus, and Victoria’s lustrous
musical depiction of the child Jesus in Simeon’s arms, Senex puerum portabat.
This weighty set of eight motets saw the number of lines move from eight to the more comfortable four and
also emphasised the ensemble’s strong points. Even with only three basses – Adrian Phillips, Andrew Fysh
and Jerzy Koslowski – the underpinning for the group’s texture is its strength, generating an accurate and
polished sound even when the line is divided.
The altos also impress for their assured and capable penetration of the texture, each one a solid contributor to
the mix. What the soprano section has lost in power over the past year or so, it has gained in stark
incisiveness. The current four voices do not have the top line’s former dominance and overpowering
brilliance, but they are precise, disembodied in character, present, but not throwing their ensemble peers into
the shade (except in a piece such as the Victoria, where the sopranos are deliberately exposed).
It was not until the night’s second half, the Tallis fragment-Mass Puer natus est nobis (complete, except for
the Credo), that the usual problem attracted attention. The four tenors can manage the notes, even the often
wrenchingly high ones that the English composer requires, but their vocal color, the quality of the sound they
produced, was occasionally at odds with the cool, elegantly articulated work of the other three voice-types.
I suppose it comes down to a rasping sense of striving, of effort to get the music out that was not present in
this stratum of the ensemble two years ago. Not that the problem became prominent at every turn of the page;
phrase after phrase in the Mass captivated the listener through that combination of the ecstatic and the
dispassionate that is one of the Tudor school’s hallmarks.
But where you used to leave a Gombert night believing that the composers themselves would have cheered
their own music because of the group’s strikingly persuasive performances, this work impressed as a fabric in
which the weave occasionally showed seam flaws.
Nevertheless, the Gomberts produced the finest and most informed choral singing I heard over the
pre-Christmas period and their recital brought the year’s musical activity to a gratifying conclusion.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Wednesday, 25 December 1996, The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 43.
A feast from Gombert
Keith Field

A CAPACITY audience assembled at Xavier College Chapel to hear Ensemble Gombert’s music for Christ’s
Mass.
The program was wonderfully imaginative in conception and delivered in exemplary style, again showing
Gombert to be pre-eminent in unaccompanied singing and 16th-Century repertoire.
Eight renaissance motets illustrated the traditional Church feast of 40 days embracing the nativity (December
25), circumcision on the eighth day, the manifestation of Christ’s divinity (Epiphany, January 6) and
purification of the Virgin (Candlemass, February 2).
Directing the choir, John O’Donnell retained total control while reflecting expressively on each text and
recreating the personality of each composer with unerring conviction.
Gombert’s rich harmonies and profound counterpoint depicted the army of angels rejoicing in the birth of the
King of Heaven. In simpler rhythm and textures, Clemens non Papa evoked the mystery of reincarnation.
Phrases of nasal plainsong alternated with austere points of imitation in Heinrich Isaac’s Unto us a Child is
Born, and Josquin surprised with moments of glittering movement, unexpected spacing and sweet, spiritual
harmonies.
This Day a Wonderful Mystery is Revealed inspired Jacob Handl to extraordinary harmonic shifts.
Clashes and microtones were nerve-tingling in a remarkable performance.
Palestrina savored the word, “Noel”, in a rich and ecstatic work for double chorus, while Lassus celebrated
the epiphany, expressing adoration of the Wise Men, gold and incense in tight knots of counterpoint and
faster harmonies.
Tomas Luis de Victoria’s ardent Spanish temperament and expressive clarity brought color to an antiphon for
Candlemass.
English composition was represented by the mass, Unto us a Child is Born by Thomas Tallis, reconstructed
in the 1960s from newly discovered voice parts. Its reserved dignity, technical perfection and sensitive
diction expressed spiritual beauty, concluding Gombert’s memorable season and promising rich variety next
year.

Tuesday 27 August 1996 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

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

REVIEWS

Thursday 29 August 1996, The Age [Melbourne], p.4
Ensemble a soaring success
Stephen Ingham

“MEDIA vita in morte sumus.” Thus begins an anonymous 11th century text: “in the midst of life we are in
death.” In an era of plagues, wars and famines, these words had a special resonance for composers and their
audiences. Tuesday’s concert in Xavier College by the Ensemble Gombert under the direction of John
O’Donnell brought together three contrasting settings of the Media vita, each one for six unaccompanied
choral parts, and all composed in the 16th century.
The plain white interior and spacious architecture of Xavier College’s Chapel proved an excellent venue, both
aesthetically and acoustically, for the 16 well-matched voices.
By paying careful attention to intonation (their aim is to preserve the purity of certain musical intervals, a
purity severely compromised by modern approaches to tuning) and developing a single, monolithic tone
quality with a uniform dynamic, the Gomberts have carved themselves a niche alongside Australia’s foremost
exponents of high-Renaissance vocal repertoire.
John Sheppard, an English composer of the Tudor period, is not generally well known but, judging by the
evidence of his Media vita setting, is unquestionably one of the finest of his day. Anyone wishing to be
initiated into the remote and exquisite world of Tudor church music need look no further than the Tallis
Scholars’ excellent recording of this astonishing piece.
O’Donnell’s singers coped well with the soaring upper parts and the grinding dissonances caused by clashing
major and minor modes, the so-called “false relations” that composers such as Purcell went on to exploit in
later years.
Nicholas Gombert’s setting was less spectacular, but equally plangent in its expressive handling of
dissonance, whereas Orlando Lassus’s treatment is much more consistently euphonious.
Another Gombert work, a five-part mass setting occupied the second half.
This is a longish work, demanding considerable stamina from the singers, who appeared to flag a little
towards the end.
The top end of the tenor range was also prone to come unstuck in intonation from time to time but, carping
aside, this was one of the better choral concerts I’ve attended in quite a while.
Stephen Ingham/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 30 August 1996, The Herald Sun [Melbourne], p.84
Choir earns fair hearing
Keith Field

AUSTRALIA’S foremost choir of unaccompanied singers, Ensemble Gombert, celebrated the waning solstice
with four masterpieces.
Appropriately, all of them were based on the wintry plainchant melody, Media Vita – “In the midst of life we
are in death “.
John O’Donnell drew gleeful attention to the “crunching dissonances” in Nicholas Gombert’s mass, Missa de
Media Vita.
He applied 16th-century chromatic practices to “bend” pitches, intensifying individual lines of melody and so
clashing voice against voice.
But the proof of O’Donnell’s daring speculations was in the hearing.
Ensemble Gombert achieved compelling unity of style, precluding vibrato, theatrical surges of
loud-and-soft and the vocal effects associated with later operatic mannerisms.
Supported by easy, natural and flexible pulsing, phrases overlapped in timeless, flowing motion to create a
mood of intensely felt spiritual introspection.
Gombert’s six-part motet, Media Vita, illustrated the composer’s consummate technical mastery as well as
emphasising his innovative spirit of discovery, continually re-arranging voices to evoke novel sonorities of
remarkable individuality.
The same text found sure response in the temperament of Roland de Lassus, whose tendency towards
melancholy and genius for strong personal expression was exemplified in a six-part motet, beautifully poised
over firm bass singing.
John Sheppard, a neglected composer of Tudor England, integrated verses of “In the midst of life . . .” with
the Nunc Dimittis – “now let thy servant depart in peace “, sung at every Anglican evensong.
Sheppard’s slender and euphonious textures, performed with confident precision, highlighted the informed
and innovative scholarship which establishes Australia’s Ensemble Gombert at high levels of excellence.

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

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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.