Reviewer rating:
NOEL! NOEL!
CHRISTMAS TO CANDLEMAS: IBERIA
Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and Choir, Melbourne Recital Centre
December 8
Ensemble Gombert, Xavier College Chapel
December 8
Something of a contrast in city styles, the Australian Brandenburg Choir and Orchestra from Sydney offered a program with something for everyone on Saturday evening, while Melbourne's own Ensemble Gombert presented its annual Christmas recital with a focus on Renaissance Spain and Portugal: a musicologist's delight, if not calculated to capture commercial success.
For the first time, Paul Dyer brought his all-comers' seasonal celebration here, using a small group of instrumentalists to support the 30-plus Brandenburg choir, an able body with generous amplitude in unaccompanied motets and Mass scraps, notable chiefly for its eight male alto corps boasting an exemplary level of even production. The Brandenburgers' game plan centred on variety, their stream of vocal and instrumental groupings in constant flux with just enough solo exposure for Matthew Manchester's subtle cornetto and the unexpectedly reticent saxophones of Christina Leonard, the complex supported by deft percussion from Jess Ciampa and the lutes of Tommie Andersson and Samantha Cohen.
Leading his singers in a focused 16th-century Iberian retrospective, John O'Donnell began with music by Morales: the Mass Quaeramus cum pastoribus interleaved by three motets, including a lengthy re-telling of the Magi's journey to and from Bethlehem. As expected, the three upper lines articulated this music with singular clarity and even timbre. But the Mass calls for two bass lines and on this night the dynamic output came across as uneven, one individual voice disturbingly prominent towards the end of the night in motets by Duarte Lobo and Guerrero.
The Brandenburgers enjoyed something like relieved acclaim in their later popular items – Hark! The Herald Angels Sing in a barbershop arrangement, the soggy sentiment of The Little Drummer Boy headed by a trio of fresh-voiced sopranos, and a rousingly rapid O Come all ye Faithful. But the most moving passage of play came in an Italian song based on La Carpinese, more suited to Good Friday than this time of year, but featuring a well-matched if anonymous tenor/bass combination.
With the Gomberts' Christmas observance, the more numerous the lines, the more satisfying the accomplishment, reaching a particularly high mark during those segments in the lush Lobo Responsories that call for all eight lines to operate simultaneously. This proved most compelling in the Portuguese composer's setting of the opening to St John's gospel where the rich polyphonic texture and declamatory assurance stripped away the tawdry tat that clutters the astonishing lesson behind the Christmas miracle.
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