James Weeks writes: "EXAUDI, long-established among the UK's leading vocal consorts, presents fresh readings of 19 of Gesualdo's madrigals from Books V and VI, combining rigorous stylistic understanding and tonal beauty with an overriding focus on the music's extreme expressive vision. The late madrigals of Gesualdo exert a strange and enduring fascination on the modern musical imagination. Listening today to these extraordinary messages of anguish and ecstasy, we are drawn back to his flame like lovers who can't let go, into the warp of chromatic harmony, the emotional hyper-intensity and mysterious otherness of this most tantalising early Baroque figure."

V2: MADRIGALI LIBRO

Collegium Vocale Gent and it's founder Philippe Herreweghe continue their recordings of the works of Carlo Gesualdo with 'Silenzio Mio', which contains the Fourth Book of Madrigals, published in 1596. Regarded as one of the most eccentric composers of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, but also one of the most creative, he experiments here with new melodic and harmonic effects that enthralled listeners of the time. These innovations are applied to poems by Alessandro Guarini and several anonymous writers, all of which focus on the expression of personal feelings, particularly a 'pathos' new on the literary scene. A veritable historical testimony to the artistic turning point that occurred at the court of Ferrara in the early seventeenth century, this fourth book takes it's place in the long-term recording project of Collegium Vocale, hailed by critics for it's 'homogeneity, contrapuntal transparency and luminosity, strikingly evident even in the most tormented pieces' (Diapason).

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

There is something deeply troubling and inscrutable in Carlo Gesualdo’s music, something that any listener, even the most inexpert one, will unfailingly experience. This most particularly holds for Tenebrae Responsoria (1611), his definitive statement, his monument, his testament. It is as if this work, firmly embedded in the framework of liturgy for the Holy Week and reaching back to the practices of the Gregorian chant, would constantly extend over its boundaries and transgress its time and setting, immediately addressing modernity, disturbing all the rules in a severe tension, reaching into something that borders on chaos and madness, within the very order and religious devotion it fully espouses. Graindelavoix, that groundbreaking ensemble based in Antwerp and directed by Bjorn Schmelzer, are the ideal performers for this disquieting repertoire which originally was sung at Gesualdo’s castle and with probably only one listener in the audience: Gesualdo himself... In a tour de force lasting over three hours, recorded over ten days in summer 2019, the singers fully display all the features which, after 16 albums(all on Glossa) and hundreds of concerts, have made their sound a truly trademark one. In words of Schmelzer, “this is our most important recording to date”. A fascinating essay especially commissioned to Lithuanian philosopher and cultural theorist Mladen Dolar puts the music of Gesualdo into perspective, avoiding the cliches that are so often found in texts about the composer.

The Second Book of Madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo provides the focal point for the latest in La Compagnia del Madrigale’s stunning reappraisals of the glories of the Italian madrigal on Glossa. Probably written by Gesualdo between the time of the double honour killing of his first wife and her lover and his subsequent remarriage, the second book presents a sophisticated compositional mastery quite in keeping with the later books, albeit offering a calmer and gentler approach compared to the more tortured and twisted musical and psychological turns found in the last books. Notwithstanding, much is required from the singers on the Secondo libro di madrigali a cinque voci and La Compagnia del Madrigale bring their much- praised sensitivity to the text, balance of ensemble and dynamic control. In the booklet, both Marco Bizzarini and Giuseppe Maletto investigate the state of mind of this fascinating composer, over four centuries since his death. The substantial second part to this recording offers a set of contrasts with Book 2: nine tracks devoted to madrigalists inspired by Gesualdo’s style, from contemporaries in Nenna, Macque and Palazzotto Tagliavia to the later Sigismondo d’India. A veritable bonus!

-----

REVIEW:

It seems to me that they have taken time to properly hit their stride, but here they rediscover the heights scaled with Claudio Cavina at the helm. These are near-flawless readings, effortlessly poised and formally legible. Their responses to textual and musical cues are never overdrawn but subtle and even humorous.

– Gramophone

Carlo Gesualdo’s music is characterized by extravagant harmonies, chromatic modulations, wide intervallic leaps and sometimes hardly catchy melodies, which not only reflect the drama of the text or the mannerism of his time, but also the emotional disorder of his creator. The LuciSerene ensemble and the equally distinguished Mauro Borgioni counter the long-established traditions, characterized by their homogeneity and beauty of sound, with a welcome freshness. In honor of the 450th anniversary of the composer, the ensemble has chosen the music of Carlo Gesualdo.

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, became famous for two reasons: The bloody double murder of his first wife and her lover and his passionate and erotic view of profane love.

Gesualdos Second Book of Madrigals, performed on this recording by male voices only, is an even more radical study of the themes explored in Volume 1 (8.570548), a continuation as it were of the same work. Like Book 1, it was published in 1594 in Ferrara during the preparations for Gesualdos second wedding, and demonstrates his ability to treat the poetic word as a source of musical ideas. The last two tracks present Gesualdos only two instrumental compositions.

Book Three of Gesualdo' Madrigals was published in 1595 and marked a strong change in his style. Rejecting leading poets of the time, Gesualdo preferred to set little known or indeed anonymous writers in order to evoke pathos and huge drama.

Andrew Parrott and his Taverner Consort and Choir honour the 400th anniversary of 16th-century Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo with a reissue of their seminal recording of Tenebrae Responses for Good Friday. Honouring the 400th anniversary of Carlo Gesualdo, the harmonically adventurous and experimental 16th-century Italian composer, Prince of Venosa, Andrew Parrott and his Taverner Consort and Choir offer a newly repackaged reissue of their seminal recording of Tenebae, the composer's final group of sacred madrigals devoted to Good Friday. The Taverner singers navigate Gesualdo's highly symbolic polyphonic structures with idiomatic first-rate performances and incisive scholarship.

With Carlo Gesualdos Third Book of madrigals La Compagnia del madrigal continue their dynamic new view of late Renaissance Italian repertoire, which has seen the vocal ensemble garlanded with critical praises and prizes since the time of its initial Glossa release- Gesualdo’s Sixth Book- three years ago. Although Gesualdo’s Third Book came out but one year after his first two books, it manifests a transitional style that led into the “late style” of the Fifth and Sixth Books. In the texts, joy and grief are frequently intermingled- yet each time freshly considered- and although there are named writers such as Battista Guarini present, many of the texts are anonymous; the interference being that Gesualdo himself might have been their author. In these exposed and unaccompanied madrigals, La Compagnia del Madrigale blends its trademark expertise and vocal freshness to take the listener on a fascinating sound journey. So as to provide a yet more nuanced view of the time of composition, the ensemble has added works by Scipione Stella, Luzzasco Luzzaschi and Alfonso Fontanelli.