Sabbato Sancto

Sandro Gorli (Composer), Philippe Herreweghe (Conductor), Ensemble La Chapelle Royale (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Ensemble La Chapelle Royale
• Conductor: Philippe Herreweghe
• Composer: Sandro Gorli
• Audio CD (October 22, 1996)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Harmonia Mundi Fr.
• ASIN: B0000007IG
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #968,784 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 1: Sicut Ovis Ad Occisi

2. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 2: Jerusalem, Surge

3. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 3: Plange Quasi Virgo

4. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 4: Recessit Pastor Noster

5. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 5: O Vos Omnes

6. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 6: Ecce Quomodo Moritur Justus

7. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 7: Astiterunt Reges Terrae

8. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 8: Aestimatus Sum

9. Sabbato Sancto: Resp. 9: Sepulto Domino

10. Motets: Ave, Dulcissima Maria

11. Motets: Peccantem Me Quotidie

12. Motets: Tribularer Si Nescirem

13. Motets: Tribulationem Et Dolorem

14. Requiem: I. Morti, Moriamo Ancora...

15. Requiem: II. Bambino, Quando Moriro

16. Requiem: III. Prendimi Fra Le Tue Braccia

17. Requiem: IV. Lieve, Lieve, Molto Lieve

18. Requiem: V. Padre, Padre

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Prince of Polyphony, April 18, 2008

By 

Giordano Bruno (Wherever I am, I am.) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Sabbato Sancto (Audio CD)

I've been searching for a superlative performance of the music of Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613), and now I've found one, right in my own CD collection, purchased at least 15 years ago but still sealed and therefore never played. What a blunder on my part! I see there are only five used copies for sale. But wait! There's a re-issue on the musique d'abord series. I can't guarantee that the sound quality is the same as the original, but I've had good luck with musique d'abord.

Gesualdo has become an almost mythical figure - the mad Italian prince who murdered his wife and her lover, and who wrote music that wouldn't be appreciated until the 20th Century. Like most myths, this one is nonsense based on facts. Gesualdo was a prince, with the fiscal resources to live his life as he chose, and he chose to compose. He did murder his adulterous wife in 1590, or hired thugs to do it, and fled to his castle in Venosa, not to flee the law but to escape a possible vendetta. His peers probably thought that the murder was necessary to defend his honor and that the couple got what they deserved. This was in Naples, remember. Just three years later, Gesualdo married again, to a daughter of the elevated D'Este family. For that wedding, he traveled to Ferrara, one of the most active musical cities in Italy, where the composer Luzzasco Luzzaschi was busy composing advanced madrigals for the "Three Ladies", famous virtuoso singers of the Ferrara court.
The other myth, that Gesualdo was ahead of his times, is easy to understand upon first hearing his music, which does feature chords and modulations that have the power to surprise even lovers of extreme modernism. Listen longer, and you will recognize that Gesualdo was schooled in the musical language of the Italian madrigalists, who had had taken the emotional temperature of the older Franco-Flemish polyphony into the red zone. In other words, structurally, Gesualdo is not so much different from Palestrina or Lassus. The Prince of Venosa just had the will and the skill to explore the outermost harmonic reaches of Renaissance musical theory.

So... Listening to this CD, within a few bars of the first vocal entrance, you'll hear intersections of the vocal lines - chords - that you've never heard in early music before. But the bizarre harmonies Gesualdo uses are not for musical novelty; they're part of his inflamed word painting. The texts of these devotional motets for Sabbato Sancto (Holy Sabbath) are laments over the Crucifixion, precisely the musical match for the picture of the dead Jesus on the CD cover. Flamboyant emotionalism is what sets Gesualdo apart from his peers, not mere dissonances.

Philippe Herreweghe and his Ensemble Vocal Europeen have done the nearly impossible. With a choir of fifteen voices, they have achieved the tight ensemble and perfection of tuning of the best one-on-a-part consort. The sound engineer for this CD has also performed a miracle; all those voices sound utterly human! Distortion is minimal; presence is intimate. Herreweghe is principally a Baroque specialist, whose ventures into Renaissance territory aren't always graceful, but this Gesualdo is a triumph.

The last five tracks of the CD are devoted to a Requiem by the modern composer Sandro Gorli, born in 1948. This Requiem is also an a capella choral piece, ever so similar to Gesualdo in emotional affect yet radically new in musical structure. Just listen to the two in juxtaposition, and I'm sure you'll realize how thoroughly a 16th C composer Gesualdo was. This Requiem is not included merely for contrast, however. Sandro Gorli can write! His Requiem is succinct, tonally beautiful, and quite moving, even after your emotional core has been shaken by Do Carlo.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Indispensible disc for Gesualdo lovers, June 13, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Ankara, Turkey) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sabbato Sancto (Audio CD)

If you are a fan of Gesualdo's madrigals, you can't afford to miss this disc. As these are religious works, they are indeed more sober than the madrigals, but the same passion glows underneath nevertheless. And because of this combination of control and passion, they are probably even more impressive. Harmonic language is as progressive as ever. Gorli is a worthy companion. Excellent playing throughout. Strongly recommended.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars outstanding performance, February 3, 2005

By 

Harry Potter - See all my reviews

This review is from: Sabbato Sancto (Audio CD)

This is one of the best cd's of sacred choral music I've ever heard. I say it's simply perfect. If you have an oportunity to buy it, don't think it twice, just do it; but of course,it's out of stock.