Customer Reviews

Gesualdo: Complete Sacred Music for Five Voices

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

RUN TO BUY THIS! This is by far one of the best CD's of Gesualdo's music on the market today. Superb blend (especially in track 1) especially for music this difficult.

This is a very good collection of Gesualdo's sacred motet style, performed beautifully. Most of these pieces are much more conservative and less chromatic than his madrigals, but they are exquisite and expresive and every bit as competent as the styles of contemporaries such as Gesualdo's alter-ego, Palestrina. Much of this music makes his mental turmoil and fear of damnation over his infamous murders achingly clear, especially the disturbing mode changes and chromaticism on parts of the text that say things like "have mercy on me" and words like "my sorrow and "my tears".

A high-quality recording of some of the most fascinating pieces ever written for voice. I favor this recording to all others of Gesualdo's music.

This recording is a fascinating collection of choral works that stand out from other music of the same period. Gesualdo used a chromatic style of composition that sounds almost modern (even though the music was written in the 16th century). The Oxford Camerata led by Jeremy Summerly sound splendid. Their control is really impressive. The recording is excellent and is well worth it's bargain price.

Don Carlo Gesualdo (1560 - 1613) was rich, artistic, and - as the second son of a noble Neapolitan family - free to indulge his passion for music. But when his brother died, and it was decreed that he must carry on the line. The bride found for him - Donna Maria d'Avalos - was his cousin, and the greatest beauty in town. Don Carlo (who may have been gay) fathered a son, whereupon his interests wandered elsewhere to music and to hunting. One day his uncle divulged to him that the attention starved Donna Maria was enjoying a brazen affair with the handsome Duke of Andria, in which they would "invite each other to battle on the fields of love". Alerting her to the fact that Don Carlo now knew about their affair, the Duke tried to convince Donna Maria to end her affair, but she defiantly announced that she would rather die. Thus was the scene set for Don Carlo's historic deed.

One day in October of 1590 Don Carlo secretly disabled the house locks before accouncing his departure on a hunt. He set off, but only to sneek back in the still of night with his henchmen to catch the sleeping lovers - exhausted by their love making - by surprise. The chronicles detail each event: The night-dress Donna Maria asked to be put out on the bed for her lover, about the maid posted as sentinel, and the sudden commotion as Don Carlo and his men burst in to find the pair "in flagrante delicto di fragrante peccato" , about the gun shots and multiple sword-thrusts, and the way Don Carlo couldn't rest until he had cut his victims to ribbons, and had personally skewered Donna Maria to the floor all the while repeating to himself "I do not believe she is dead". He dragged the bodies out onto the stairs, posting a notice explaining why he had killed them for all the town to come to gape at the next morning. The Duke was still clad in the women's night-dress prepared for him, while Donna Maria's "wounds were all in her belly, and especially in those parts which ought to be kept honest".

Neapolitans were horrified, with as many taking the lovers' side as that of their murderer. Despite vows of vengeance by Donna Maria's family, Don Carlo's nobility ensured he escaped trial, and he withdrew to Ferrara, where he remarried, but was soon "afflicted by a vast horde of demons which gave him no peace unless twelve young men, whom he kept specially for the purpose, were to beat him violently three times a day, during which operation he was wont to smile joyfully."

Don Carlo built a private chapel, completed in 1592. Inside hung a painting depicting the Virgin Mary and saints all pointing to the sinner, Don Carlo, while the fires of purgatory burnt below - out of which angels pull the figures of a man and a woman. Could these be the murdered lovers before which Don Carlo implored forgiveness? His music certainly becomes filled with an obession with themes of guilt, sin, pity, and death - even the joy of love being mixed with a fascination with pain: 'dolorosa gioia', such 'joyous pain' being a typical outburst.

Without doubt the music written by the prince of Verona is some of the most macabre yet outlandishly fantastic music ever written. The famous unprepared chromatic side steps remain decidedly unnerving even to a devoted Second Viennese School fan like me. The effect of the chromatic spirals is often vertigo inducing but also deeply moving and ultimately awe-inspiring. This is truly sublime music by a neglected genius.

The performances here are amongst the very best available of Gesualdo's music - at any price. This would be a perfect place to start exploring this bizarre but inspired musical universe. I agree - you should rush out and grab this superb recording without a moment's hesitation.

For those who do not know, Don Carlo Gesualdo (ca. 1561-1613) has the dubious honor of being the only composer who was also a murderer. In 1590, he killed his wife and her lover in cold blood (and rather brutally, I believe) upon discovering them together. It is interesting to speculate that the bizarre qualites of his music owe something to tortured guilt and possible madness resulting from this deed. However, as Jeremy Summerly argues in the liner notes to the CD, that is no reason to take him less than seriously as a composer.

This particular CD is the only complete recording currently available of Gesualdo's Sacrae Cantiones, his first collection of religious motets, pub. 1603, though a few of these pieces can be found filling out other recordings. I'm not really qualified to judge, but this performance seems good to me, clear and well balanced among the different parts. I have seen it argued that Gesualdo intended these pieces to be performed with only one voice taking each part, in which case the Oxford Camerata used 7 too many people; however, I have not heard any other performances, so I can't offer any comparison between the two approaches. My only real criticism is, it would be nice if the text, and perhaps the English translations thereof, had been included.

Personally I like Gesualdo's music because it's noticeably out of the ordinary for the Renaissance period (not that I don't like Palestrina, et. al., too). With all the odd harmonies and chromaticisms he uses, sometimes (to me, at least) it almost even sounds modern. In any case, it's certainly unique, and never grows boring. To all who are interested in Renaissance music, I recommend that you check it out.

Briefly, I agree with the French review by Ron Roy - reverberous! But it's the choral reverb, not the recording ambience. I'd forgotten I had this CD, having played it once and stashed it, but I took it out and iPodded it, and now I recall that I never got past the third track. The Oxford Camerata is a fine English choir, but no choir could individuate the lines of Gesualdo's polyphony with enough mordant independence of diction and musical syntax, let alone 'nail' the perfect tuning required of cadential chords.
On the other hand, I can't recommend an alternative. Gesualdo has not been well performed, perhaps because his work falls between the realms of the Orlando Consort for Renaissance and Europa Galante for Baroque, to go straight for the best. Too bad!

A fine collection, not Gesualdo's most adventurous music but beautiful nonetheless.

Ce disque est une belle démonstration du savoir-faire
de Gésualdo.
Toutefois, il me semble que la prise de son
est beaucoup trop réverbérée. Néanmoins, disque peu cher.