Category: Reviews

Tuesday, 12 May 1998 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Concert 2

PROGRAM

Jacob Obrecht Mille quingentis
Johannes Martini Salve regina
Josquin Desprez Virgo salutiferi
Josquin Desprez Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie
Josquin Desprez Huc me sydereo
Jacob Obrecht Quis numerare queat
Josquin Desprez Miserere mei, Deus

 

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Helena Simpson	Peter Neustupny	Philip Nicholls
Carol Veldhoven	Jennifer Mathers	Stuart Tennant	Tom Henry
Maria Pisani	Margaret Arnold	Philip Legge	Thomas Drent
Helen Gagliano	Barbara Tattam

–

REVIEW

[nd] May 1998, The Age [Melbourne], [np].
A vocal vista on Italy
Joel Crotty

Ensemble Gombert, under the direction of John O’Donnell, continued their “Italian Year” with a thoughtful
program of music at the Court of Ercole I of Ferrera.
Unlike their previous concert of heavy-going Gesualdo, this event was broader in scope and focused on the
talents of Martini, Obrecht and Josquin Desprez. At various times between 1473 and 1505, these
Franco-Flemish composers served Ferrera’s royal household and their efforts helped the town flourish as a
centre for cultural activity.
In their own professional way, Ensemble Gombert was able to open a window on an Italian vista, revealing
historical perfection in musical craftsmanship and felicitousness in contemporary performance.
While the pieces by Martini and Obrecht proved interesting, they were merely interludes to the mighty power
of Josquin. Four of his works were presented at this concert – Virgo salutiferi, Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarie,
Huc me sydereo descendere iussit Olympo and Miserere mei, Deus.
All these pieces are mammoth undertakings for any choir, as Josquin demands the most minute detail be
given as much acknowledgment as the super-structures. It was only in the Virgo salutiferi that the choristers
presented a few moments of uneven presentation.
Conversely, the miserere was wonderfully outlined. Even though some vocal lethargy was starting to appear
in this finale item, it did not particularly inhibit their soulful understanding of the dramatic content which
Josquin had set in place. We followed in awe as the choir journeyed through the octave on the words “Have
mercy upon me, O God”.
This phrase divided or sub-divided the text and provided graphic repetition, which O’Donnell insisted be
delivered with controlled reverence.
Although Josquin was at his expressive best in the motet form, he was still able to deliver emotionally-laden
emphases in the structurally-centred mass. He lived during at time when there seemed to be a free-for-all in
stylistic experiment, and at the forefront of which was Josquin.
His Missa Hercules is an example of throwing caution to the wind, in as much as he composed his own
cantus firmus, thereby declining the time-honored tradition of borrowing pre-existing material.
It is possible he wrote the mass long before he was employed by the Duke, and as such it could be argued that
he was trying to impress the Court with his credentials. While this is speculative, other aspects appear more
certain, such as the near perfect performance of this mass by the Gomberts.
They produced great clarity, even in the most contrapuntal moments, and coupled this with balance and
restraint. Yet the careful projection of definition did not at any stage inhibit choral color, which was
absolutely radiant, not only in the mass but throughout the concert.
It was pleasing to see the return of program notes, which failed to materialise at their last event. O’Donnell
strives for excellence in musicianship which is underpinned by scholarly research. This mixture of vocal
poise and academic purpose has made the group one of the leading choirs in Melbourne, and if they could
tour widely they could rightly claim to be a national treasure.
Joel Crotty/Courtesy of The Age

 

Tuesday, 31 March 1998
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Rd, Kew

Subscription Concert 1

PROGRAM

Carlo Gesualdo, Principe di Venosa Responsoria (1611)
Feria Quinta: 9 Responsoria
Interval (10 minutes)
Feria Sexta: 9 Responsoria
Interval ( 10 minutes)
Sabbato Sancto: 9 Responsoria

SINGERS

Soprano Deborah Summerbell Carol Veldhoven Nina Pereira Claerwen Jones Maria Pisani Helen Gagliano

Alto Helena Simpson Jennifer Mathers Bernadette Ballard

Tenor Frank Prain Peter Neustupny Andrew Green Stuart Tennant Philip Legge

Bass Tom Henry Thomas Drent Andrew Fysh

REVIEWS

Monday 6 April 1998 The Age [Melbourne], page 17.
Musical stamina put to the test
Joel Crotty

Ensemble Gombert’s 1998 season will be an all-Italian affair, in one way or another. In keeping with the
interesting programming of previous years, conductor John O’Donnell has come up with a series focusing on
the musical activities of a court, a town and a composer.
The Xavier College Chapel was filled for Gesualdo’s Responsaria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae
spectantia, of 1611, which was the choir’s first concert of the series.
The music is not only long in title but also in duration. It is a mammoth undertaking for both the choristers to
perform and for an audience to absorb. The complete Responsoria follows the lessons for Maundy Thursday,
Good Friday and Holy Saturday – a total of nine segments a day.
These 36 lessons do not collectively constitute a dramatic Easter storyline, but rather they are meditative;
hence, there is little potential for musical development. Therefore, the music is about momentary nuance
rather than broad splashes of color.
Some members of the audience found the required level of concentration too much by the end of the Good
Friday cycle and left. But it is the madrigalian way Gesualdo sets individual words and phrases that
highlights his gift for musical imagery. Coupled with these fleeting word-paintings is the composer’s chaotic
chromaticism, his sudden shifts in density and rhythm, and the awkward melodic lines, all of which makes
the Responsoria one of the composer’s most expressive scores.
Ensemble Gombert projected the music’s expressivity in a refined manner. The darkly hued sounds were
never lightened but rather shades of black became the fundamental perspective. Furthermore, clean lines were
evident – even in the wide-ranging melismas – and the phrasing was concisely controlled.
The constant need to re-blend and re-balance was, for the most part, seamlessly carried out, together with
tempi that never seemed out-of-place. It was only near the end of this epic journey that the singers became a
little tired.
The superbly resonant qualities of the basses – Tom Henry, Thomas Drent and Andrew Fysh – proved highly
effective in supporting roles and when called upon to be at the forefront of exposing the composer’s vivid
imagination. Only the altos, squeezed as they were between the larger soprano and tenor forces, seemed
unable to reveal a personality.
But this was a minor concern compared with the frustrating lack of program notes. The Gombert concerts are
thoughtfully constructed, almost with an eye on being didactic. However, on this occasion, John O’Donnell
chose to deliver a few words on the structure of the Responsoria in lieu of printed notes. It was a missed opportunity to impart knowledge and, therefore, better place the performance in its historical perspective.
Joel Crotty/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 3 April 1998 The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 93.
Musical stamina put to the test
Johanna Selleck

CARLO Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, was a man capable of the cruellest act of savagery, and also of the
loftiest expression of religious sentiment.
It is difficult to reconcile the cold-blooded murderer who stabbed his wife and her lover to death with the
composer of such inspired sacred music.
The way in which his music juxtaposes elements of the terrifying with the sublime is an accurate reflection of
the tortured soul of this complex individual.
Ensemble Gombert delivered the kind of scholarly, focused reading of the Responsoria that has become one
of the hallmarks of this exceptional choir.
Given that Gesualdo’s Responsoria is the product of the spirit of the Counter-Reformation, textual lucidity is
paramount.
Gombert’s clarity of diction and attack ensured that this was rarely compromised, despite the mammoth task
of presenting all of the 27 Responsoria in one sitting.
Divided into three groups of nine Responsoria, the story of the Passion is recounted, as told in the Lessons for
the hour of Matins on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday.
Gesualdo’s genius was such that he was not hindered by the rigid schematic layout of Response and Versus,
but was able to create a work of poignant beauty via daring harmonies, variations in textural density and
imaginative rhythmic contrasts.
The dramatic potential of the work was convincingly realised in the choir’s performance.
For example, Gesualdo’s clever fugue on the words vos fugam capietis was thrown into sharp relief by the
powerful delivery.
Where the composer paints the text in musical gestures the choir enhanced them with subtle timbral and
dynamic adjustments, as on the words Darkness covered the Earth.
Here the vocal sonorities – the basses in particular – transformed magically into dark, sombre, earthy colors,
making a stunning contrast to the ethereal quality attained on the ensuing words, He gave up the ghost.
Gombert’s ability to achieve such complex variety while maintaining a richly homogenous foundation of
sound is one of the most impressive and enjoyable aspects of their performances.

Tuesday 16 December 1997 at 8pm
Wednesday 17 December 1997 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Series Concert No 5

PROGRAM
Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina O magnum mysterium a 5
Tomás Luis de Victoria Quem vidistis, pastores a 6
Orlande de Lassus Videntes stellam a 5
Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Hodie Christus natus est a 5
Francis Poulenc Quatre motets pour le temps de Noël
Josquin Desprez Praeter rerum seriem a 6
Cipriano de Rore Missa Praeter rerum seriem a 7

 

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Helena Simpson	Peter Neustupny	Andrew Williams
Carol Veldhoven	Kate Brian	Stuart Tennant	Tom Henry
Maria Pisani	Bernadette Ballard	Andrew Green	Thomas Drent
Helen Gagliano	Andrea Blansjaar	Philip Legge	Jerzy Kozlowski

REVIEWS

Friday 19th of December 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 4.
Ensemble ends the year on a high note
Joel Crotty

AROUND this time each year the Christmas carols are lurking everywhere – in school halls, street corners
and shopping complexes. In concert halls, Handel’s Messiah becomes a December fixture with interest
primarily centred around how many people stand up during the hallelujah chorus rather than for the oratorio
itself.
So when there is a program that has Christmas as a departure point for some rigorous intellectualism, it
becomes a musical Everest on a plateau of squawking insipidness.
The concert in question was Ensemble Gombert’s final event for the year. Not only did director John
O’Donnell find some fascinating musical links spanning generations and centuries, but was supported in his
efforts by some fine ensemble work from his group.
The first half of the program featured some of the musical giants of the 16th century: Palestrina, Victoria and
Lassus. Performing their work in one concert requires the singers to negotiate huge stylistic shifts.
A more impersonal approach is needed for Palestrina’s abstracted sense of design. The choir performed
Palestrina’s O magnum mysterium with an appropriate level of restraint. They did not imbue the lines with
unnecessary emotion, preferring to reveal the score’s wonderfully contrapuntal symmetry with smooth
flowing intent.
Conversely, scores by Victoria and Lassus are highly charged essays with impassioned use of chromatics to
create strong tonal coloring. In both Victoria’s Quem vidistis, pastores? and Lassus’s Videntus stellam, many
of the dramatic nuances were revealed with the required level of subtlety. On occasion, however, the
complexity of the Lassus created some problems with clarity.
For light relief, Sweelinck’s joyous Hodie Christus natus est was rendered with a deftness the score deserved.
These four, highly individual settings of traditional texts acted as a fascinating contrast to Poulenc’s Quatre
motets pour le temps de Noel, which concluded the first half of the concert.
Poulenc more or less used the same words as his predecessors and musically never strayed too far from the
textual meanings. His settings of O magnum . . . and Videntes . . . did disclose, however, a soprano line that
seemed too shallow to let loose the declarations the music required. None the less, the unusual twists and
turns scattered throughout the work were, as a rule, handled with care.
After the interval, O’Donnell rearranged the choir by dividing the soprano, alto and basses sections into
smaller components. This manoeuvre worked particularly well, as a greater blend of sound was the obvious
outcome. The reorganisation suited Josquin Desprez’s Praeter rerum seriem and the group, without a
noticeable weakness, presented the inner strength of the music with resolve.
A generation later, another Franco-Flemish composer, de Rore, composed a mass based on the Deprez motet.
This seven-part mass has a dense structure that can be a perilous journey in performance if the individual
lines are not allowed to breathe. Up to a point this occurred, with the basses and altos being the strong
foundations that enabled the other sections to maintain solidarity.
Joel Crotty/Courtesy of The Age

 

Friday 19th of December 1997, The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 82.
Gombert scales festive heights
Johanna Selleck

ENSEMBLE Gombert joined in Melbourne’s yuletide celebrations with a concert entitled Christmas to
Candlemas.
The selection of renaissance motets and a mass made an exuberant and uplifting conclusion to this year’s
concert series.
In accord with 16th century choral practice, Gombert state in their performance notes that they aspire to the
sound of a “properly built organ”.
At times, they come so close to this ideal that the effect is uncanny.
So smoothly blended and finely tuned is the meld of voices that it glows with an inner resonance only ever
achieved by a careful combination of organ stops. Because of this the music soars to sublime heights without
the aid of externally imposed devices such as dynamics.
The color created by the ensemble makes cadence points radiate a spiritual significance that is quite divorced
from any artificially conceived sense of climax or repose.
In this way, the ensemble brought to life the four motets by Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus and Sweelinck which
opened the program.
Following this, in Poulenc’s Quatre Motets Pour Le Temps De Noel (which is based on the same four
motets), the unique renaissance sonorities were diluted and transformed by Poulenc’s highly idiomatic
language. His use of dynamic tapering, contrasts and dramatic climaxes betray a very different approach to
his predecessors, and one which drew a strong response from the choir.
For Poulenc, two of the most important aspects of his religious writing were fervor and humility.
Both of these qualities found expression in this evening’s performance.
Josquin Desprez’s Praeter Rerum Seriem and Cipriano de Rore’s Missa Praeter Rerum Seriem (based on the
same motet) met with a competent performance after interval, though not generally as inspired or stimulating
as the first half.
The tenors and basses formed a reliable bulwark here, while the pairs of sopranos and altos were less evenly
matched in strength.
The second group of each pair appeared more tentative and less rigorous in maintaining the vocal line,
resulting in a noticeable imbalance

Tuesday 11 November 1997 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Kew

Subscription Series Concert No 4

PROGRAM

Heinrich Isaac Gaudeamus omnes
Josquin Desprez Missa Gaudeamus
John Taverner Audivi vocem de caelo
John Sheppard Audivi vocem de caelo
Thomas Tallis Audivi vocem de caelo
William Byrd In festo omnuim sanctorum
William Byrd Gaudeamus omnes
William Byrd Timete Dominum
William Byrd Iustorum animae
William Byrd Beati mundo corde

Soprano	Alto	Tenor	Bass
Deborah Summerbell	Helena Simpson	Peter Nesutupny	Andrew Williams
Carol Veldhoven	Kate Brian	Stuart Tennant	Tom Henry
Maria Pisani	Margaret Arnold	Philip Legge	Jerzy Kozlowski
Helen Gagliano	Bernadette Ballard

REVIEW

Friday 14 November 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 5.
Exploring range of choral color
Joel Crotty

ENSEMBLE GOMBERT’S penultimate concert for 1997, featuring music by Isaac, Josquin, Taverner,
Sheppard, Tallis and Byrd, was a particularly solid exploration of styles and techniques.
They ranged from the armory of procedures located in the scores of Josquin and Byrd to the more delicate
counterpoints by the other composers. More importantly, the different referential points for each score were
superbly itemised and individualised by the choir under the subtle guidance of John O’Donnell.
The main focus of the evening was Josquin’s mighty Missa Gaudeamus. In this work, one can understand
why, within his lifetime, Josquin was revered by his peers. The penetrating choral colors were evident in
Ensemble Gombert’s rendition.
However, the minutiae of contrapuntal nuance was less successful. O’Donnell divided up the inner voices,
which, due to the vagaries of 16th-century compositional practice, was a valid option, but occasionally these
voices seemed to lose touch with the outer parts.
What anchored the work was the forceful conviction of the basses, who radiated a sonorous warmth.
Of the sections, it was the Sanctus which revealed the choristers’ absolute control of the brilliant writing.
There was never a moment in this part which wavered towards uncertainty in delivery.
Similarly, the altos were strong supporters for the sopranos in the Audivi vocem de caleo settings for high
voices by Taverner, Sheppard and Tallis. It was an interesting comparative exercise, though not one of the
trio stood out. The altos’ luxuriant sound occasionally broke up into strands, while the sopranos had a blended
mix but were particularly thin. This combination, of weak/dominant, unified/disparate, worked, for some
strange reason.
Furthermore, it was sensible programming on O’Donnell’s part to schedule some pieces that resonated with
less intensive emotive fervor than either the Josquin or Byrd’s In festo omnium sanctorum which closed the
concert.
If Josquin’s output represents the high-water mark of the Continental Renaissance, then Byrd’s music is the
bridge between the Tudor polyphonists (as represented in the concert by Taverner, Sheppard and Tallis) and
England’s golden age of music during the early-17th century.
The choristers performed Byrd’s Propers with the right amount of verve, which was occasionally rocked by
some slightly unfocused phrasing.
Joel Crotty/Courtesy of The Age

Saturday  20 September 1997
Hawthorn Town Hall, Burwood Road, Hawthorn

The Academy of Melbourne concert series

PROGRAM

Christopher Willcock Night Thoughts
Franz Schubert Mass in G, D.167
Franz Schubert Ninth Symphony, D.944

Singers unknown

 

REVIEW

Tuesday 23 September 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 5. (extract)
Love long and prosper
Tony Way

[…]
MANY MSO players are to be found playing in the Academy of Melbourne, whose recent concert paid
homage to Schubert. Night Thoughts, a newly commissioned piece from Christopher Willcock, opened the
program. Scored for three trombones and mixed choir, its attractive and sustained lyricism would have
benefited from a more resonant room.
A “chamber” performance of Schubert’s Mass in G, D.167, followed. The 15 voices of Ensemble Gombert
had the virtue of clear and well-tuned delivery, but I would question the practice of drawing soloists from the
chorus. The Academy applied its customary enthusiasm both to the Mass and the Ninth Symphony, D.944.
In the symphony, Brett Kelly’s muscular rhythmic sense came to the fore, especially in the second and third
movements, allowing the orchestra and the listeners to make sense of Schubert’s long utterances. Kelly also
shaped the opening of the work to good effect, ensuring clarity of inner parts and effective dynamics. I
wonder whether the unobtrusive arrival of Markus Stenz during the symphony may have added a little extra
sparkle to the finale.
Tony Way/Courtesy of The Age

Tuesday, 27 May 1997 at 8pm
Xavier College Chapel, Barkers Road, Kew

Subscription Series Concert No 3

PROGRAM

Thomas Tallis Incipit lamentatio
Robert Parsons Ave Maria
William Byrd Quomodo cantabimus?
Thomas Morley De profundis
Thomas Weelkes Gloria in excelsis Deo
Orlando Gibbons O clap your hands
Thomas Tomkins O God, the proud are risen against me
Henry Purcell Thou knowest, Lord
Samuel Wesley In exitu Israel
Charles Villiers Stanford Magnificat for double Chorus
Ralph Vaughan Williams Three Shakespeare Songs
1. Full fathom five
2. The cloud-capped towers
3. Over hill, over dale
Benjamin Britten Hymn to Saint Cecilia

SOPRANO	ALTO	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Helena Simpson	Peter Neustupny	Adrian Phillips
Carol Veldhoven	Jacqueline Howard	Michael Stevens	Andrew Williams
Maria Pisani	Margaret Arnold	Philip Legge	Jerzy Kozlowski
Fiona Seers		Andrew Green

 

REVIEWS
Tuesday 3 June 1997, The Age [Melbourne], page 5.
Unsettling choral virtuosity
Clive O’Connell

NOT COMPLETELY deserting its usual Renaissance ground, the Ensemble Gombert’s recent concert
covered four centuries of English music, much of it for liturgical use. John O’Donnell’s group emphasised
Elizabethan and Jacobean works – Tallis, Parsons, Byrd, Morley, Weelkes, Gibbons, Tomkins, and Purcell
through the popular anthem Thou knowest, Lord.
These were sung with the Gombert’s habitual polish. Even when the parts thinned out because of composers’
demands for many lines, a slight spikiness informed the choral mix as individual voices took on more
prominence.
This exposure, nevertheless, served to demonstrate the group’s even balance. The productive gap between
Purcell and Wesley is about a century, but the level of inspiration is somewhat greater. While In exitu Israel
(without organ accompaniment) has a piquant heartiness, it is comparatively lightweight.
Stanford’s Magnificat for double chorus rang some warm post-Brahmsian changes, but the real ear-opener
was with Three Shakespeare Songs by Vaughan Williams, rarely sung small-scale works: Full Fathom Five,
The cloud-capp’d towers (a recycling of material from the 6th Symphony), and Over hill, over dale. All are
testing for a choir, sometimes just in simple pitching of notes, but their effects are magical.
Finally, O’Donnell took his forces through a direct, unsentimental, headlong version of Britten’s Hymn to St
Cecilia. This was a case of stripping away any gloss or fat, going for the emotional meat in Auden’s verses:
an extraordinary, somehow unsettling exhibition of choral virtuosity. […]
Clive O’Connell/Courtesy of The Age

Friday 30 June, The Herald Sun [Melbourne], page 72.
Gombert in classic voice
Johanna Selleck

ENSEMBLE Gombert’s concert covered four centuries of a cappella English music, resulting in some
fascinating stylistic comparisons. The diverse program provided glimpses into the music’s chronological
development from the Tudor period to contemporary times.
The first half focused on sacred music produced by a succession of composers, most of whom were famous
“gentleman of the Chapel Royal”. The concert began with the mournful Incipit Lamentatio by Thomas Tallis,
and works by Parsons, Byrd, Morley and Weelkes followed. All were performed with the poise and assurance
that we have come to expect from this ensemble.
These composers were expert at reconciling the demands of the text with those of the music, despite often
complex polyphony. This feature is highlighted by the ensemble’s ability to maintain such crystalline
sonorities.
Purcell’s Thou Knowest, Lord introduced a change of mood along with a more homophonic style, and, to
complete the first half, Samuel Wesley’s In Exitu Israel was positively rousing.
For music of the 16th century, Ensemble Gombert aims to draw upon performance practices of the time in
attempting to sound “like a properly built organ” with a fairly constant, homogenous tone.
The golden age of a cappella music requires exactly such a carefully cultivated sound, whereas the modern
works programmed after interval required a very different approach.
The Stanford’s Magnificat was full of drama and contrasts that would have been inappropriate earlier, as
would the timbral variations required in the final two works by Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin
Britten.
Vaughan Williams’ Three Shakespeare Songs opens to the sound of bells tolling on the most piquant
harmonies, and the effect was captured beautifully.
Hymn to St Cecilia by Benjamin Britten has enormous scope for color and dynamic variation, from the soft
choral unisons and the light, almost flippant, reiterations in the scherzo to the quasi-instrumental vocal
cadenzas.
Most of these opportunities were explored imaginatively, though a more adventurous interpretation would
have enhanced the performance even further.

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

Soprano	Alto	Tenor	Bass
Deborah Summerbell	Helena Simpson	Peter Neustupny	Adrian Phillips
Carol Veldhoven	Jacqueline Howard	Michael Stevens	Andrew Williams
Maria Pisani	Margaret Arnold	Philip Legge	Andrew Fysh
Fiona Seers		Andrew Greene	Jerzy Kozlowski

–
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

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.

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

SOPRANO	ALTOS	TENOR	BASS
Deborah Summerbell	Katherine Wells	Philip Legge	Adrian Phillips
Carol Veldhoven	Margaret Arnold	Andrew Green	Andrew Fysh
Maria Pisani	Jennifer Mathers	Timothy O’Connor	Jerzy Kozlowski
Fiona Seers	Lynette Richardson	Matthew Flood

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.