Category: Reviews

Saturday, 11 September 2010, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 4

The language of Palestrina so suited the ideals of the Counter- Reformation that his style became synonymous with Roman Catholic polyphony over the next four hundred years. ‘School of Palestrina’ could thus include composers writing in the ‘Roman’ or ‘Palestrina’ style over the succeeding centuries, but here we limit it to a few composers known to have been his students or at least working in close association with him. The principal work of the program is Soriano’s re-working of Palestrina’s great six-voice Missa Papae Marcelli for eight-voice double choir.

PROGRAM

Giovanni Maria Nanino Stabat Mater
Felice Anerio Lumen ad revelationem
Tomas Luis de Victoria Alma Redemptoris Mater
Tomas Luis de Victoria Ave Maria
Tomas Luis de Victoria Tu es Petrus
Francesco Soriano Missa de Papae Marcelli
Kyrie – Gloria – Credo – Sanctus – Agnus Dei

 

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Belinda Wong	Peter Campbell	Samuel Allchurch
Katherine Norman	Jennifer Mathers	Tim Van Nooten	Kieran Rowe
Carol Veldhoven	Rebecca Woods	Vaughan McAlley	Alistair Clark
Kathryn Pisani	Niki Ebacioni	Stuart Tennant	Thomas Drent
Claerwen Jones
Maria Pisani

REVIEW
Monday, 13 September 2010, The Age [Melbourne], page 16.
Old and new juxtaposed in fine ensemble show
Clive O’Connell

ON SATURDAY night, the Choir of Trinity College Cambridge repeated their touring program, notable for
juxtaposing old and new and highlighting director Stephen Layton’s passion for contemporary Baltic music.
Employing half the British body’s personnel, John O’Donnell’s Ensemble Gombert follows different paths,
concentrating on specific composers like Tomas Luis de Victoria, who provides all the content in the group’s
Christmas concert this year, or multi-polyphonic lines as in April’s offering event centred on Brumel’s
Earthquake Mass. Coinciding with the second Cambridge recital, the Gomberts sang music by writers taught
by Palestrina, influenced by him, or who rearranged the Renaissance master’s own work.

Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli was held up to his contemporaries as the exemplar of all that could be
achieved in Counter-Reformation music: transparent and unembellished, on textual message throughout,
elevating in emotional content, suggestive of unshakeable strength of faith in its Creed’s later stages.

Rather than singing the original six-part Mass, the Gomberts worked through an arrangement by Palestrina’s
one-time pupil, Francesco Soriano, for eight lines or two choirs, which made lavish use of antiphonal effects,
realised to excellent effect by a cleverly arranged division of the Gombert voices, one group having a bright
timbral edge while the other enjoyed a firm, carrying tenor-and-bass partnership. Gifted with finely trained
participants, the ensemble transformed this curiosity into a richly thick tapestry, almost overwhelming in
pivotal sections where every line merges in sonorously stunning affirmations of belief.

As well as the mass, this night’s other contributions featured a short version of Giovanni Nanino’s
chorale-like Stabat mater, a variety-packed Lumen ad revelationem by Anerio, and a trio of Victoria motets
where the two-choir Alma Redemptoris mater and Ave Maria prepared for the night’s major work.
For this fine body’s admirers, the only disappointment was that the night passed all too rapidly.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 17 April 2010, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 2

The challenge of writing many polyphonic lines without forbidden consecutive unisons, fifths or octaves was something that Renaissance composers relished. Most were contented to develop the technique to a maximum of six or eight voices, but there were those who set themselves higher goals, among whom Antoine Brumel was possibly the first to write a whole Mass for twelve voices. The work is based on the Easter Lauds antiphon Et ecce terrae motus, and our program complements it with contemporaneous works for the Easter season.

PROGRAM

Antoine Busnoys Victimae paschali laudes
Heinrich Isaac De Resurrectione Domini
Introitus: Resurrexi
Graduale: Haec Dies
Alleluia: Pascha nostrum
Prosa: Laudes Salvatori voce
Communio: Pascha nostrum
Josquin Desprez In exitu Israel
Antoine Brumel Missa Et ecce terrae motus
Kyrie – Gloria – Credo – Sanctus
Nicolas Gombert Regina caeli laetare

DISCANTUS	CONTRATENOR	TENOR	BASSUS
Deborah Summerbell	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Julien Robinson
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Matthew Thomson	Thomas Drent
Kathryn Pisani	Rebecca Woods	Frank Prain	Alistair Clark
Kristy Biber	Peter Campbell	Stuart Tennant	Chris Potter
Maria Pisani	Niki Ebacioni	Daniel Thomson	Tim Daly
Katherine Norman	Paul Bentley		Nick Dinopolous

 

REVIEW

Tuesday, 20 April 2010, The Age [Melbourne], page 13.
Choir for connoisseurs rejoices in angelic praises
Clive O’Connell

THE latest program offered by the Ensemble Gombert, directed by John O’Donnell, divided cleanly into two
parts celebrating the Easter season. For Saturday evening’s first half, the singers worked through music for
four voices: Isaac’s De Resurrectione Domini that comprises settings of the propers for the Easter Sunday
Mass, bracketed by the Binchois motet Victimae paschali laudes and In exitu Israel attributed to Josquin
Desprez.

After interval, the choir expanded for the night’s sumptuous centrepiece, Brumel’s famous mass in 12 lines,
with a pendant motet for the same multiple layers, Regina coeli laetare, by the group’s patron composer.
A few changes in personnel find the group’s alto line taking in a pair of countertenors, Peter Campbell and
Paul Bentley, which gives the choral mix an added aggressive timbre, most immediately noticeable in parts of
the Isaac settings like the focal Prosa/Sequence with its polyphonic verses. In similar fashion, the four basses
in this part of the night were dominated by the reinforcing power of Tim Daly during the solid Josquin setting
of Psalms 114 and 115.

Brumel’s mass based on the plainchant Et ecce terrae motus received an impassioned reading, its opening
sections yielding powerful waves of sonority as chords changed texture with a vehement address. The score’s
longer sections — Credo and Sanctus/Benedictus — offer a wealth of textural variety, but where the
Gomberts excelled was in the massive blocks of interweaving chords, making a stunning impact in the
treatment of the words in excelsis with a sudden leap from a spare duet for soprano and countertenor lines to
an explosion of sonority: one of music’s finest depictions of the endless angelic praises that hurtle around
Heaven’s throne.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Correction:
The composer named Binchois should instead be named Busnoys

Saturday, 12 December 2009, 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

After two Venetian Christmas celebrations we return to our High Renaissance fare. Three years ago we performed Mouton’s Christmas motet Quaeramus cum pastoribus along with Morales’ Mass based upon it. This time we are singing another Mass based on the same motet, that by Mouton’s star pupil Adrian Willaert. The program is completed by a selection of motets by one of Gombert’s greatest contemporaries, the prolific but mysteriously named Clemens non Papa.

PROGRAM

Jean Mouton Nesciens mater
Jean Mouton Noe, noe, noe, psallite
Jean Mouton Illuminare, illuminare Jesusalem
Clemens non Papa O magnum mysterium
Clemens non Papa Pastores quidnam vidistis
Clemens non Papa Vox in Rama
Clemens non Papa Ab oriente venerunt magi
Clemens non Papa Videte miraculum
Jean Mouton Quaeramus cum pastoribus
Adrian Willaert Missa Quaeramus cum pastoribus

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Belinda Wong	Peter Campbell	Julien Robinson
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim van Nooten	Chris Potter
Maria Pisani	Rebecca Woods	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Henry
Claerwen Jones	Niki Ebacioni	Stuart Tennant
Kathryn Pisani

 

REVIEW

Monday, 14 December 2009, The Age [Melbourne], page 14
Polyphonic Christmas splendour
Clive O’Connell

Melbournes finest choir took little time to weave an impressive fabric of a cappella polyphonic
splendour on Saturday evening. In a program that confined itself to Renaissance music written for Christmas
Day, the Feast of the Holy Innocents and the Epiphany, John O’Donnell’s 16 singers began with a work of
sumptuous amplitude, Jean Mouton’s 8-part Nesciens mater, in which they established a rolling richness of
deep colour that illustrated the paradox of the Nativity’s domestic simplicity expressed in music of
extraordinary complexity and eloquence.
Keeping to a simple format, the Gomberts followed three Mouton motets with four works in the same form
by Clemens non Papa.
Here also, the set’s opening established a radiant placidity as the familiar text of O magnum mysterium was
amplified to include acclamations of Christ’s birth scene, each half of the motet concluding with a powerfully
moving Nowell: moments when the composer’s expressive assurance found splendid realisation, thanks to
these gifted interpreters.
In the night’s second part, O’Donnell revisited Mouton with the still harmonically surprising Quaeramus cum
pastoribus, followed by Willaert’s Mass based on his teacher’s motet.
The Flemish composer’s lucid textures came in for dramatic treatment, O’Donnell and his choir bringing an
urgency of pulse to this work’s various parts with an occasional reduction to limpid two- and three-line
textures before the burnished glory of the final Agnus Dei gave a muted reflection of the program’s opening.
Once again, this group of well-matched voices enriched the festive season with musical performances of high
quality.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Tour Concert
Memorial Church, Stanford Univeristy, California, USA
22 September 2009

Josquin Desprez – Inviolata, integra, et casta es Maria
Jean Mouton – Quis dabit oculis nostris
Nicolas Gombert – Hodie nobis caelorum Rex
Thomas Tallis – Loquebantur variis linguis
Clemens non Papa – O magnum mysterium
Morten Lauridsen – O magnum mysterium
Elliott Carter – Musicians wrestle everywhere
Vaughan McAlley – In principio erat verbum
Peter Campbell – Sunrise on the Coast
J.S. Bach – Jesu, meine Freude

REVIEW

“Ensemble Gombert’s Crystalline Polyphony”
Joseph Sargent
San Francisco Classical Voice, 22 Sep. 2009

Some early music ensembles approach the performance of Renaissance polyphony as if it were fine crystal: beautiful, but delicate, a fragile object not to be unduly disturbed. Like crystal, the music can occasionally shimmer and reveal prisms of color when viewed through different angles, but it remains a static object, more a museum piece than a kinetic construct. This analogy aptly summarizes the experience of hearing Ensemble Gombert, a 14-voice chamber choir from Australia specializing in High Renaissance polyphony. Under the direction of John O’Donnell, the group’s performance Tuesday at Stanford University’s Memorial Church showcased some fine vocal qualities and several flashes of light, but often without truly taking flight.

O’Donnell cultivates a warm sound from his singers, refined and a little thin, with some dark hues especially in the women’s voices. It’s finely blended within the sections and generally well balanced, though a stronger alto presence would be welcome at times. At its best the group conveys a highly appealing purity of sound, but other times the effect is of immobility, a feature abetted by O’Donnell’s rigid conducting style.

The evening’s repertory choices fell mostly along two strands: Renaissance sacred polyphony and modern choral works. The differences in approach were often palpable, as evidenced by two pieces of different eras but bearing the same title. The Christmas motet O magnum mysterium (O great mystery) of Jacob Clemens non Papa was elegant, careful, and regular to the point of being foursquare. Repeated iterations of the text “Noe” revealed Ensemble Gombert’s capacity for detailed nuance and left you wanting for more of such gestures. Morten Lauridsen’s O magnum mysterium, in contrast, carried a dramatic arc from solemn opening phrases to a dramatic, thrilling close, marred only by some imprecise attacks along the way.

In Josquin Desprez’ Inviolata, integra, et casta es Maria (Inviolate, pure, and chaste art thou, O Mary) the group’s dark-tinged sound suitably matched the beseeching nature of the text, though a firmer sense of forward motion might have enlivened the plangent closing pleas “O benigna! O Regina! O Maria!” (O generous one! O Queen! O Mary!). A similar pallor lies over Jean Mouton’s Quis dabit oculis nostris (Who will give our eyes [a fountain of tears]), a lament upon the death of Queen Anne of Brittany. Here the ensemble displayed more-pleasing contrasts, from the pristine opening lines to graceful texture alternations between the upper and lower voices.

With the joyful message of Nicolas Gombert’s Hodie nobis caelorum Rex (This day hath the King of heaven [deigned to be born]) the ensemble gathered energy, proclaiming the words with greater vigor and confidently handling the shifting metrical figurations that close each of the work’s two sections. In Thomas Tallis’ responsory Loquebantur variis linguis ([The apostles] were speaking in different tongues), more could have been made of the contrast between the tenor’s fixed declamation of chant and the meandering polyphony surrounding it.

Elliott Carter’s Musicians wrestle everywhere, set to a poem by Emily Dickinson, is a higgledy-piggledy mixture of contrapuntal melodies, texture shifts, and stark declamations. The group ably negotiated the piece’s rapid-fire shifts and dissonant harmonies. Works by two of Ensemble Gombert’s own tenors further enlivened the program. Vaughan McAlley’s In principio erat verbum (In the beginning was the Word), composed in a Renaissance idiom, infused excitement through contrasting sections of counterpoint, solemn homophony, and a sprightly closing declaration of glory. Peter Campbell’s Sunrise on the Coast conveyed a more impressionist feel, the opening bursts of blowing wind yielding to a panoply of shifting styles and moods, with an interior fugue for good measure.

As a closer, J.S. Bach’s masterful funeral motet Jesu, meine Freude affords opportunities for all manner of expression: lively choruses, contemplative trios, stately chorales, and a brisk central double fugue. The ensemble easily handled each movement’s technical challenges and displayed a pleasing range of moods from quiet introspection to vigorous exhortation, which could have been further enhanced through greater dynamic and rhythmic energy.

Joseph Sargent holds a Ph.D. in musicology from Stanford University and teaches at the University of San Francisco.

Saturday, 12 September 2009, 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

With Barber, Carter and Lauridsen we make our first foray into American music. Barber’s wonderful 1938 setting of Gerard Manley Hopkins’ God’s Grandeur naturally invites comparison with Kenneth Leighton’s 1957 setting of the same poem, while Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia has been a long-standing request. The second half of the program features works by members of Ensemble Gombert, past and present.

PROGRAM

Elliott Carter Musicians Wrestle Everywhere
Morten Lauridsen O magnum mysterium
Samuel Barber God’s Grandeur
Kenneth Leighton God’s Grandeur
Benjamin Britten Hymn to St Cecilia
Peter Campbell Sunrise on the Coast [World première]
Vaughan McAlley In principio erat verbum [World première]
Vaughan McAlley Veritas de terra orta est [World première]
Calvin Bowman Missa Vexilla regis [World première] *

* Writing of this work was assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council.

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Belinda Wong	Peter Campbell	Julien Robinson
Carol Veldhoven	Jenny George	Tim van Nooten	Kieran Rowe
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Chris Potter
Maria Pisani	Rebecca Woods	Stuart Tennant	Alistair Clark
Claerwen Jones
Kathryn Pisani

 

REVIEW

Monday, 14 September 2009, The Age [Melbourne], page 14.
New is old as exemplary choir sings premieres
Clive O’Connell

It all depends on what you mean by “our time”, but the most recently written segments of the Ensemble
Gombert’s latest subscription recital sounded noticeably old-fashioned, if not antique.
After offering a small selection of American and British works, John O’Donnell and his exemplary choir sang
world premieres of short pieces by two of the Gombert tenor personnel.
First was Peter Campbell’s staid, only slightly adventurous Sunrise on the Coast, a setting of an A. B.
Paterson lyric; then came Vaughan McAlley’s responses to two Latin liturgical texts written in a vocabulary
recalling Renaissance masters and the Gabrielis’ Venice.
Calvin Bowman’s new Missa Vexilla regis uses parts of the eponymous plainchant and moves rapidly
through the familiar texts with a pleasure in candid sonorities, spiced by unexpected sideways harmonic
moves. Like his Australian colleagues on this night, Bowman avoids grinding dissonances, making this new
mass easy to assimilate.
The most contemporary-sounding music came in centenarian Elliott Carter’s Musicians Wrestle Everywhere,
a bristling 1945 mesh of polyphonic devices, against which Britten’s almost contemporary Hymn to St Cecilia
sounded tame, if rather rushed in this performance.
But the most affecting music-making emerged during two juxtaposed settings of the Hopkins sonnet God’s
Grandeur by Samuel Barber and Kenneth Leighton: similar but individual, sung with evenly spread
accomplishment right through to their spell-binding final bars.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

 

Saturday, 7 March 2009, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 1

This concert commemorates the French composer Jean Mouton some 550 years after his birth. The first part of the program is a succession of motets composed for auspicious occasions in the life of the French court, to which Mouton was attached for the last two decades of his life. The second part is devoted to a single Marian motet followed by a Mass based upon it by the Spaniard Cristóbal de Morales.

PROGRAM

Jean Mouton O Christe redemptor, O rex omnipotens
Jean Mouton Caeleste beneficium
Jean Mouton Non nobis Domine, non nobis
Jean Mouton Quis dabit oculis nostris
Jean Mouton Missus est angelus Gabriel
Jean Mouton Domine salvum fac regem
Jean Mouton Exalta Regina Galliae
Jean Mouton Benedicta es caelorum regina
Cristóbal de Morales Missa Benedicta es caelorum regina

SOPRANO	ALTOS	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Belinda Wong	Peter Campbell	Kieran Rowe
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Tim van Nooten	Julien Robinson
Fiona Seers	Jenny George	Vaughan McAlley	Chris Potter
Maria Pisani	Niki Ebacioni	Stuart Tennant	Tim Daly
Claerwen Jones
Kathryn Pisani

 

REVIEW
Tuesday, 10 March 2009, The Age [Melbourne], page 14.
Vocal display of grace and balance
Clive O’Connell

Under director John O’Donnell, the Ensemble Gombert opened its five-concert annual series with a
program consisting largely of motets by one of France’s greatest composers during the middle Renaissance.
Unusually for this expert choral group, much of Saturday night’s music-making required only four lines, the
effect in the recital’s first half one of piercing clarity, particularly in the sequence of apostrophes that occupy
much of the length in O Christe redemptor: one of several addresses to the Almighty to increase the
child-production rate of that unfortunate lady Anne of Brittany, who married three times without producing
the requisite son.
Not that Mouton’s music turns to the lugubrious when referring to the daughter-cursed queen; the fluency of
the eight motets sung by the Gomberts demonstrated the composer’s grace of utterance, sense of dynamic
balance, proportionate weighting of vocal layers, and interesting if unadventurous textures. Mouton had an
eye for textual highlighting, shown by his rare repetition of focal lines and employment of homophonic
movement when words held high significance, as during the deploration on Anne’s death, Quis dabit oculis
nostris.
Probably the most striking music of the night sounded the most atypical. The solid Missus est angelus Gabriel
tells the annunciation story pretty close to St Luke’s version but in a polyphonic five-line onslaught that
prefigures the sonorous grandeur of the Gabrielis’ Venice. The Gomberts produced a powerful sound, as
impervious to disruption as a waterfall, an engrossing display of vocal consonance in action.
Later, the ensemble sang another Marian motet, Benedicta es caelorum regina, and the Mass based on its
content by Morales. Apart from some coarseness from the tenors at the motet’s opening, this half of the night
generated the same impression of mastery, with the added benefit of the Spanish composer’s longer-breathed
melodic lines, his Mass ending in a moving Agnus Dei that started in the orthodox four parts, moved to
plainchant, then concluded in a full-bodied six-line texture displaying the female voices in this fine group.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 13 December 2008, 8 pm
Xavier College Chape, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 5

This is not the celebrated Monteverdi Vespers of 1610, but a selection of vespers music from his large 1640 compilation. While the earlier collection is often associated with St Mark’s, Venice, it was actually composed in Mantua, before Monteverdi’s Venetian years. The music of the 1640 publication, however, is true Venetian music, perhaps composed over a period of a quarter of a century, yet all of these pieces demonstrate Monteverdi’s undiminished creative powers.

PROGRAM

Monteverdi’s Christmas Vespers (from his 1640 publication)

Claudio Monteverdi Versiculus et responsorium
Paulo Quagliati [organ] Toccata dell’ottavo tuono
Claudio Monteverdi Dixit Dominus
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del secundo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Confitebor
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del quinto tono
Claudio Monteverdi Beatus vir
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del ottavo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Laudate pueri
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del settimo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Laudate Dominum omnes gentes
Paulo Quagliati [organ] Canzona
Claudio Monteverdi Christe, Redemptor omnium
Andrea Gabrieli [organ] Intonatione del primo tono
Claudio Monteverdi Magnificat primi toni

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Kieran Rowe
Carol Veldhoven	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Tom Henry
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Daniel Thomson	Chris Potter
Kathryn Pisani	Jenny George	Matthew Thomson	Tim Daly
Maria Pisani
Claerwen Jones

Instrumental ensemble
John O’Donnell – chamber organ

REVIEW

Monday, 15 December 2008, The Age [Melbourne], page 16.
Spirit soars in simple hymn of repemption
Clive O’Connell

FOLLOWING a pattern set in last year’s Christmas-to-Candlemas recital, the Ensemble Gombert presented
interleaving Venetian works: psalm-settings, a hymn and Magnificat from Monteverdi’s so-called Christmas
Vespers, interspersed with organ intonations and toccatas by Andrea Gabrieli and Quagliati supplied by the
conductor John O’Donnell.
Pairs of violins and bass viols, one violone, a sackbut and Samantha Cohen’s theorbo supplied a solid
instrumental support for the voices that offered added interest.
The tenor line now enjoys two more high-flying voices in Daniel and Matthew Thomson, while Peter
Campbell’s stalwart efforts have a worthy foil in Tim van Nooten whose timbre has broadened in colour and
confidence. A similar invigorating experience emerged hearing sopranos Fiona Seers and Claerwen Jones
take on heavy responsibilities, notably in the Magnificat.
But the evening’s surprise came through a simple hymn, Christe, redemptor omnium. No clever detail here;
just a shapely melody treated with sensitivity and a crisp sparkle, spot-on for this season’s celebrations.

Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 24 May 2008, 8 pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

The compositional output of the prolific Lassus includes many cycles — for example, the Sacrae lectiones novem ex propheta Iob, the Psalmi Davidis poenitentiales, and two sets of Hieremiae prophetae lamentationes. Just days before his death, Lassus completed a setting of the twenty-one ottava stanzas of Tansillo’s Lagrime di San Pietro (Tears of Saint Peter), a work described by scholar James Haar as “one of the most remarkable artistic testaments in the history of music”. Earlier and shorter, but no less remarkable in their own way, are the Prophetiae Sibyllarum (Prophecies of the Sibyls), perhaps Lassus’s most significant essay in chromaticism.

PROGRAM

Orlande de Lassus Prophetiae Sibyllarum
Orlande de Lassus Lagrime di San Pietro

 

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Kieran Rowe
Carol Veldhoven	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Julien Robinson
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Tim Daly
Kathryn Pisani	Gowri Rajendran	Stuart Tennant
Maria Pisani
Claerwen Jones

 

REVIEW

Tuesday, 27 May 2008, The Age [Melbourne], page 13.
Ensemble in assured rendition of Prophecies
Clive O’Connell

IN THE middle of its annual subscription series, the Ensemble Gombert concentrated on Renaissance protean
composer Orlande de Lassus, presenting two major works from either end of his career: the Prophecies of the
Sibyls and the Tears of St Peter. Because of the Messiaen festival in St Patrick’s Cathedral, I was able to hear
only the 12-section setting of the verses purporting to foretell the coming and life of Christ.
While much of the popular music of Lassus falls on the ear with bracing sweetness when placed in the
company of his contemporaries, the language of the Prophecies holds a startling amount of chromatic shifts, a
device prefigured in Lassus’ own introductory verses and that parts of the following segments live up to
vigorously. Not that these sideways slips held many challenges for the Gombert singers, who are well-versed
in much more arcane material.
Further, the work asks for four vocal lines only and so the full energy of the Gombert sopranos and tenors
reinforced the deliberation of Lassus’ word-setting, which rarely involves repetition but proceeds through
each stanza with a time-conserving rigour. Still, the uninterrupted flow of the work showed this admirable
body in fine voice, if nowhere near fully stretched technically or interpretively.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday, 8 September 2007, 8pm.
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 4

The Baroque, by and large, was not a period of a cappella writing: most choral works involved at least a continuo accompaniment. And it is possible that all works on this program were also performed in such a manner, at least on occasion. Taking our departure from the splendid six-voice Lassus motet upon which Praetorius based his Magnificat, we subsequently explore four little-known works of Schütz before revelling in a selection of Bach motets.

PROGRAM

Orlande de Lassus In te, Domine, speravi
Michael Praetorius Magnificat super In te Domine speravi
Heinrich Schütz Ich bin eine rufende Stimme
Heinrich Schütz Das Wort ward Fleisch und wohnet unter uns
Heinrich Schütz Das ist je gewißlich wahr
Heinrich Schütz Selig sing die Toten, die in dem Herren sterben
Johann Sebastian Bach Fürchte dich nicht
Johann Sebastian Bach Ich lasse dich nicht
Johann Sebastian Bach Komm, Jesu, komm

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Julien Robinson
Carol Veldhoven	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Peter Tregear
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Vaughan McAlley	Tom Reid
Kathryn Pisani	Jenny George	Stuart Tennant	Tim Daly
Maria Pisani
Claerwen Jones

REVIEWS

Tuesday, 11 September 2007, The Age [Melbourne], page 14.
Honeyed singing from city’s choirs
Clive O’Connell

TWO of the city’s premier choirs moved further into their annual subscription series at the weekend, both
showing their singers in fine, if not exactly flawless, order.
On Saturday night, the Ensemble Gombert began easily, moving through congenial Baroque choral music
before finishing with three a cappella challenges from J. S Bach; on Sunday, the Melbourne Chorale give a
lightly sprung account of the Mozart Requiem, helped in great part by sharply etched support from the
Australian National Academy of Music Orchestra.
At the Gombert event, the first part ran twice as long as the following Bach motets sequence, the prefatory
material coming from Orlando di Lasso, whose In te Domine speravi served as a springboard for the
following Magnificat by Praetorius.
This pairing yielded the night’s most honeyed singing, rich chords and full-spectrum harmonies flattering the
choir, which was put to slightly sterner work in four pieces by Schutz, where the development of material
becomes more organised and dense.
But the Bach works displayed the Gomberts’ dynamic powers, the opening Furchte dich nicht erupting onto
the scene with heightened effect and urgency after the sombre steadiness of the preceding program items.
The newly attributed Ich lasse dich nicht operates in a smaller field but gave clear definition to the
differences in texture between the double choirs, while the final Komm, Jesu, komm emphasised the linear
complexity and strength of the composer’s vocal writing.
Every choir finds Bach’s more tangled contrapuntal segments difficult to articulate with absolute ease, but
this group of experts gives as close to an ideal realisation of the composer’s hefty vocal concertato sequences
as we are likely to hear in this country. […]
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Wednesday, 12 September 2007, Herald-Sun [Melbourne], page 62.
ENSEMBLE GOMBERT
Anna McAlister

ENSEMBLE Gombert is all about academia and unashamedly high art: authentic a cappella performances
with no risk of dumbing down in the name of accessibility.
Gombert sings very much to the converted — an audience of 100 or so, mostly friends and choral cognoscenti.
Though groups like this are essential to the survival of the music they perform, it would be wonderful to hear
more variety of textures and repertoire. It’s a shame Gombert doesn’t appeal to a wider audience because it is
a spectacularly fine choir that everyone should hear.
Gombert’s German baroque a cappella concert was a series of motets from the 16th to 18th centuries.
In the first half, comprising works by Lassus, Praetorius and Schutz, both music and performance epitomised
restraint. There was minimal rubato and dynamic contrast, each line undulating slightly to assume a greater or
lesser share of an unchanging volume.
The 18-voice group sang with superb timbre, pitch and ensemble.
All the works culminated in a perfectly balanced chord, each voice audible yet blended.
In Praetorius’ Magnificat super In te Domine speravi the chant sections of unison male voices moved as a
single, warm-hued entity. But, by the standards of later musical periods, this repertoire is emotionally
impenetrable. It became the level of skill, rather than art, that impressed.
J.S. Bach’s Furchte dich nicht; ich lasse dich nicht and Komm, Jesu, komm brought a welcome touch of
warmth and humanity, perhaps because they are set to non-biblical texts.

Saturday, 4 August 2007, 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Concert 3

The English choral repertory, it seems, is always in fashion. Representing the Golden Age is Mundy’s intricate Vox Patris caelestis, sandwiched between two of the era’s best-loved works by Taverner and Tye. From the past century we have a Bach-inspired Magnificat from Stanford, some wonderful settings of great English poetry by Vaughan Williams and Britten, and two remarkable Hymns by the modern Tavener.

PROGRAM

John Taverner Dum transisset Sabbatum
William MundyVox Patris caelestis
Christopher Tye Missa Euge bone
Charles Villiers Stanford Magnificat for Double Chorus
Ralph Vaughan Williams Three Shakespeare Songs
Benjamin Britten Five Flower Songs
John Tavener Two Hymns to the Mother of God

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Jennifer Mathers	Peter Campbell	Julien Robison
Carol Veldhoven	Belinda Wong	Tim Van Nooten	Philip Nicholls
Fiona Seers	Niki Ebacioni	Frank Prain	Tom Reid
Kathryn Pisani	Heather Gaunt	Stuart Tennant	Jerzy Kozlowski
Maria Pisani
Claerwen Jones

 

REVIEWS

Tuesday, 7 August 2007, The Age [Melbourne], page 14
Rare airing for Russian master’s revolutionary work
Clive O’Connell

[…MSO Review…]
AT THE latest Ensemble Gombert recital, director John O’Donnell divided his program into two discrete
halves, both consisting of English church music.
The first dealt with three Tudor composers, including William Mundy’s ornate motet Vox Patris caelestis and
the Euge bone mass by Christopher Tye. These works, with Taverner’s Dum transisset Sabbatum, exemplify
the Gomberts’ normal playing field and once again they showed the haunting gravity of their communal
timbre.
While the sopranos retain their penetrating clarity, this occasion demonstrated the high quality in the male
ranks, with Peter Campbell and Tim van Nooten’s confident tenors balancing the impressive stateliness of
Jerzy Kozlowski’s bass.
The group then took a 350-year leap forward to the 1919 Magnificat by Stanford for double choir, which
sounded most persuasive in its Bach-indebted opening and closing strophes, if somehow underpowered in the
central segments. O’Donnell also led his forces in Vaughan Williams’ Three Shakespeare Songs and the Five
Flower Songs by Benjamin Britten.
Concluding the night with a living composer, the ensemble sang Two Hymns to the Mother of God written in
1985 by John Tavener. This wound up a long journey from the assertive certainty of the first great school of
British music to the unexpected Orthodox strain assumed by the country’s leading religious music exponent.
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

 

Wednesday, 8 August 2007, Herald-Sun [Melbourne], page 57.
ENSEMBLE GOMBERT
Anna McAlister

ENSEMBLE Gombert’s Taverner to Tavener program explored British a cappella choral music from the 16th
and 20th centuries.
Interestingly, the composers John Taverner (born 1490-ish) and John Tavener (born 1944) are not just
namesakes with an R to differentiate; they are distantly related.
Taverner’s gorgeous Dum transisset Sabbatum began a concert of strikingly polished and controlled
performances. The 18-piece choir displayed consistently honed balance, the sopranos never unsubtle, the
basses tantalisingly present.
Under director John O’Donnell they moved flawlessly together and individual voices formed perfectly
blended sections. Though each vocal line ebbed and flowed dynamically, the volume range was compact
throughout. The result was pure, clear and warm, the soprano voices flatteringly airbrushed.
Vaughan-Williams’ Three Shakespeare Songs and Britten’s Five Flower Songs were the only secular works
on the program.
In the first Shakespeare song, Full Fathom Five, the close dissonances were spot-on for pitch and they
resonated and decayed, convincingly bell-like, at the end.
A personal favourite was Tavener’s Two Hymns to the Mother of God (1985). The texture felt
three-dimensional: continuous shimmering chords in the inner voices (again pitched to perfection) seemed
like a current of warm air suspending melodies in the soprano and bass lines.