
2022 Concerts
We are excited to be back in 2022 after a truncated performance season in both 2020 and 2021.
Upcoming Performances

Melbourne Recital Centre: Classical Music Series
Lassus & Palestrina
Monday 4th April 2022
7.30pm Elizabeth Murdoch Hall
Two of the greatest composers of the Late Renaissance.
Orlando de Lassus Omnes de Saba, LV 973
Magnificat secundi toni, LV 1070
Magnificat super carmen praeter rerum seriem, LV 1070
Tristis est anima mea, LV 238
Il magnanimo Pietro
Nunc dimittis primi toni, LV Anh.111
Palestrina Missa ‘Assumpta est Maria’
Lassus and Palestrina are regarded as two of the greatest composers of the Late Renaissance. In his day, Lassus’s works were widely disseminated across Europe and he was known as the finest living composer. Palestrina and his musical language became the hallmark of the era in succeeding centuries.
Today the two composers are of equal stature, Lassus better known for the number and enormous variety of his motets and Magnificats (101 of the latter), Palestrina for his 105 Masses.
Ensemble Gombert’s performance in Elisabeth Murdoch Hall opens with Lassus’s brilliant double-choir setting of Omnes de Saba venient, followed by his Magnificat Praeter rerum seriem, the highly expressive Tristis est anima mea, and his final work, a Nunc dimittis composed days before his death. Ending with Palestrina’s great 6-part Mass for the Assumption in a program of pure mastery.
The Art of a cappella
3.00pm Sunday 12th June 2022
St Ambrose Church, Woodend
Johann Sebastian Bach Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf (BWV 226)
Benjamin Britten. Hymn to St Cecilia
Arvo Pärt 7 Magnificat-Antiphonen
William Henry Harris. Faire is the heaven
Johannes Brahms Fest- und Gedenksprüche, Opus 109


Tallis & Byrd
Monday 7th November 2022
7.30pm Elizabeth Murdoch Hall
Works from undisputed masters of Late Renaissance music in England.
Thomas Tallis and his pupil William Byrd are the undisputed masters of Late Renaissance music in England. Though Masters of the Chapel Royal, both remained devout Roman Catholics throughout their lives.
This program culminates in the most famous English choral work of the sixteenth century, Tallis’s forty-voice setting of Spem in alium nunquam habui. While the date and occasion of the motet’s composition remain a mystery, dates from 1556 to 1573 have been conjectured, along with possible connections with the Duke of Norfolk or the Earl of Arundel.
The technical mastery and architectural brilliance it exhibits have never been in doubt. This is one of music’s most dazzling masterpieces.
Ensemble Gombert is joined by friends and former members to present this work as it was originally intended.

All Saints
3.00pm Sunday 22nd May 2022
All Saints St Kilda
Orlando de Lassus Christus resurgens
Huc me sydereo descendere jussit Olympo
Surrexit pastor bonus
Magnificat super “Praeter rerum seriem”
Johann Sebastian Bach Der Geist hilft unser Schwachheit auf (BWV 226)
William Henry Harris. Faire is the heaven
Arvo Pärt 7 Magnificat-Antiphonen

PAST CONCERTS
ENSEMBLE GOMBERT HAS BEEN PERFORMING FOR OVER 30 YEARS AS OF 2020.