The second project of Collegium Vocale Gent and Philippe Herreweghe for the Phi label to focus on Renaissance music is devoted to one of the most remarkable of all composers: Carlo Gesualdo. Both his life, characterised by extravagant and excessive behaviour, and his compositions left their mark on the history of music. Although best known for his secular music, he also wrote an almost equivalent number of sacred works that demonstrate his fervent faith. The Tenebrae Responsories comprise a set of pieces for Holy Week, in all twenty-seven motets for six voices, a psalm, and a hymn, published under his own supervision in 1611. As in his madrigals, the music is underpinned by many unexpected chromatic variations that create expressive images evoking tears, the earthquake, the despair of Christ on the cross, etc. The acoustics of the church of the village of Asciano in Tuscany, where the programme was recorded in 2011, create the perfect soundscape for this music.

R E V I E W S:

Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent are masters of Renaissance polyphony, having produced go-to titles of this repertoire in their two-decade discography for Harmonia Mundi. Now recording for their own imprint, Herreweghe and company present a double-disc set of Carlo Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories. Infamously, the Italian nobleman had his wife killed after catching her in flagrante delicto with another; his works thereafter have a penitential dissonance that gives the music a modernist feel. If not as chromatic as his late madrigals, Gesualdo’s works for Tenebrae are more harmonically and rhythmically daring than those of, say, Lassus or Victoria. As atmospheric as a candle-lit ceremony, Herreweghe’s account of these richly textured works is beautifully sung and perfectly recorded.

-- Bradley Bambager, Listen Magazine

Synchronicity strikes again. Here, on the heels of Marco Longhini’s beautifully boxed set of Gesualdo’s secular madrigals (see my review above), is a release of the composer’s sacred music. As annotator Glenn Watkins puts it in the booklet, Gesualdo’s sacred music fell completely into oblivion. Watkins surmises that part of this may have been due to the fact that very few copies have survived, indicating (to him) that the print run may have been very small to begin with. Yet there may also be the barrier to non-religious listeners who simply do not respond to this type of music. As always, it depends on the quality of the music and the quality of the performances.

Watkins’s liner notes do not indicate whether or not the published copies of these scores call for the number of voices used here, which range between 13 and 19. (Herreweghe’s choir includes six female singers.) Nevertheless, the group is splendid. It has that rare combination of good vocal blend, transparency of texture and excellent diction that made Longhini’s madrigal performances equally exceptional. Moreover, as Longhini’s high male voices blended perfectly with the lower ones, so do Herreweghe’s female voices blend perfectly with the male, including four countertenors (two designated as “altus” and two as “quintus”) with equally exceptional voices.

What Watkins does indicate, however, is that the religious music is not as harmonically daring as the last two books of madrigals: “the moderation of their most extreme harmonic language in the sacred works cannot fail to be noted. Yet while the insistent contrast between fast (diatonic) and slow (chromatic) music found in the madrigals is less obvious here, the sacred texts offer abundant images for an inflected musical response.” In addition, as the performances unfolded, I heard quite a bit here that was considerably more advanced than any other liturgical music of its time; and, more to the point, not only the music but its performance here was considerably more emotional and powerful than the Gregorian chant and/or Palestrina music used at that time. Again, to quote Watkins, “Gesualdo’s introduction of such a powerful musical language into the ritual of Holy Week has been debated as a potentially disturbing contravention of the rules of post-Tridentine liturgical practice….We need only consider Gesualdo’s setting of Tristis est anima mea from the Maundy Thursday cycle to note the difference….The flight at the beginning is flurried and quickly cut off by a rhythmic snap; the offering of his soul and body that follows is embraced by one of the most affective and passionately chromatic passages in the entire cycle….In the Holy Saturday cycle, Aestimatus sum … is drama of a high order and of a kind rarely attained in the world of sacred music before or after.”

Watkins’s dry but accurate description of this music says as much as I could, thus I will allow his words to stand for mine here. From whatever viewpoint you approach this remarkable set of discs, however, it is a gem to be cherished.

FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Classical Music

This new release with the Danish Copenhagen early music ensemble Musica Ficta under conductor Bo Holten was recorded in a live concert Nov. 18 in Bari, Italy. After the concert the following praise was given: “As I told you, I've heard lots of groups sing Gesualdo, many of them very, very good. But I would rank yours right at the top. It was absolutely splendid, and for that you have my eternal thanks.” (Glenn Watkins, leading Gesualdo scholar). The intensity of the performance and the stylish and vocally superb musicianship shines through with full force. Early music ensemble Musica Ficta is the leading Danish expert group in the field of early music. Their recordings consistently receive high ratings from critics and audiences, and their concerts continuously delight fans.

Just listen to the variations in tempi and dynamic of Luci serene e chiare. It’s the first track of this fourth volume in the excellent series of Gesualdo's madrigals from Delitiæ Musicæ under Marco Longhini on Naxos. To hear this is to appreciate how effective care and attention to every nuance should be when singing what is often seen as a dark corner of the Renaissance vocal repertoire.

It goes on that way: the six singers and keyboard player (Carmen Leoni) treat every piece by the usually only anthologised Gesualdo as its own gem. They approach each madrigal almost as if it were Gesualdo's only one. This could, admittedly, lead to a laboured and self-conscious style. It doesn't. The Italian group's familiarity with and obvious love of Gesualdo's world sees to that.

Instead, our response is anticipation for each next madrigal while thoroughly savouring the particularities of the one we're listening to. In a way this helps to create an understanding of the corpus of this aspect of Gesualdo's output … two more CDs from Naxos - to whom Delitiæ Musicæ is under exclusive contract - and the cycle will be complete.

The composer's Fourth Book of madrigals was published in Ferrara in 1596 and quickly achieved several further printings - including one in 1613 in Genova in partitura - a rare occurrence enabling singers to experience the music 'horizontally', line by musical line.

This Fourth Book was intended as a kind of atonement for the composer's (conviction for the) murder of his first wife, Donna Maria d'Avalos in 1590. In the Kingdom of Naples a husband had such a legal right in the case of infidelity. But, although Gesualdo faced no punishment from the legal system, he was ostracised and marginalised by his own community. What Longhini - who also produced the 'Urtext Edition' for these recordings - and his singers have achieved so well is a convincing set of performances. This graciously and genuinely blurs any distinction that we might make four hundred years later between heartfelt remorse on Gesualdo's part and what the Renaissance poet, playwright and composer was able to make using events from life as material for art.

In a way the tone, the weeping, the dourness, the (self-)deploring, above all the self-doubt must be taken as starting points for this beautiful and affecting music - not as something to be expressed in and by it. The creativity, the tight and effective matching of texts (mostly anonymous and by Guarini) to tonality and texture are what matter. They stand on their own. That's the approach which these performers so successfully take.

At the heart of the set is what at first sight appears a misfit: Sparge la morte al mio Signor [tr.12], the longest piece here at almost seven and a half minutes. In fact to transfer the remorse to images of the unjustly (with ambivalences) murdered Christ illuminates the complexity of Gesualdo's thinking in these works. The suggestion is clear … alongside remorse and torment should come forgiveness and some sort of 'settlement'. Indeed by the time we get to Arde il mio cor [tr.19], the darkness has lifted somewhat, though Delitiæ Musicæ's tempi are still slow, if a little less deliberate. Although those resounding bass notes of Walter Testolin are held for just as long and are as chilling, there is a sense of hope. Certainly the remaining three pieces look upward and let light in.

Nevertheless, overall we're not allowed to forget the trauma, the potential for trauma, the torment represented by (secular) love, and the totality of a soul so affected when subjected to such searing and unrelenting self-examination. Not once do the singers lay the mud or paste on too thickly. Nor do they overlook the innovative nature of the sonic impact of the poetry … dissonance, distortion, a little interruption of the metrical line and much expressive, more easily-flowing consonance between text, harpsichord and song. You can hear this in the fittingly final Il sol qual or piu splende [tr.22]. While the phrase 'tour de force' would be wrong because it would suggest the need for a more mighty and strenuous push than is necessary here, the achievement of Longhini with Delitiæ Musicæ is a considerable one.

Their tone is just right from first to last, their articulation, emphases and sense of seriousness yet neither drab nor spuriously sparkling are indeed delightful. There is, to be sure, little of the lighthearted and springing qualities which we often associate with some madrigals. The purpose and drive behind these interpretations makes them hugely successful.

The booklet that comes with the CD has useful background - particularly to the killing and its subsequent effect on Gesualdo. It contains all the texts in Italian with English translation. The acoustic is clear and not too resonant, though full of intensity in atmosphere. If you've already been attracted to this excellent series, don't hesitate to add this to the collection. It's also a convincing and sensitive enough set of performances to encourage you to start and explore the lot. The Fifth Book is eagerly awaited.

– Mark Sealey, MusicWeb International

GESUALDO Madrigals , Books 5 and 6 • Marco Longhini, cond; Delitiae Musicae • NAXOS 8.573147-49 (three discs: 182:40 Text and Translation)


Don Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613), Prince of Venosa (the last of that aristocratic line), is renowned for the mannerist music he wrote, both sacred and secular, and the personal failings that enliven so many accounts of his life. He spent an important few years of his life in Ferrara after marrying the niece of Alfonso II d’Este, a court where he had much company among composers and singers, including Cipriano de Rore, Jacques de Wert, and Luzzasco Luzzaschi, not to mention the celebrated singing Ladies of Ferrara. He had grown up in similar surroundings in Venosa, where one of his teachers was Pomponio Nenna.


Another set of Gesualdo’s madrigals has now been completed, the last of several recordings marking the quarter-centenary of his death, although even this last installment was recorded two or three years ago. Marco Longhini’s interpretive approach is just different enough to make this an alternative to the others rather than a competition among them. We have had the old version of Angelo Ephrikian, recorded in 1968 but still available, sung one voice to a part with slow tempos (not as slow as Longhini), stylistically obsolete in a new era of Baroque interpretation. The other complete set came from Kassiopeia ( Fanfare 33:4) with considerably faster tempos but a keen sense of style. Longhini has now provided the third complete set, including for good measure the few other secular works published separately. Several other directors have recorded complete books, perhaps hoping to complete all six, among them Harry van der Kamp (29:3), Anthony Rooley (8:2), and those mentioned below.


This collection is striking for its departure from the performance practice of the first four books, issued one disc at a time (34: 1, 34:5, 35:3, 36:2). In each of those discs, he acknowledged an alternative performance practice by using harpsichord or theorbo to accompany half of the madrigals, leaving the rest unaccompanied, as all other recordings known to me have done. In these last two books, the madrigals are all unaccompanied. I find no explanation in Longhini’s lengthy and informative notes to indicate why his practice in the first four books has not continued here.


Tempos are again an obvious measure of the difference among competing versions of these madrigals. In Book 5, the northerners, Kassiopeia (33:4) and Hilliard (35:6), take about 55 minutes in all, while among the Italians, La Venexiana (29:2) takes 64 minutes and Longhini 83 minutes. Book 6 is similar, for Kassiopeia (also 33:4) is 67 minutes, La Compagnia del madrigali (36:6) is 78 minutes, and Longhini is 100 minutes. The very first madrigal in Book 6, Se la mia morte brami , is exactly twice as long here as in Kassiopeia’s. I would rather hear it too slow than too fast, but note that the recent La Compagnia del Madrigale version is a moderate four minutes. So it goes for every selection, if not exactly a 2:1 ratio. To be sure, all the cited versions are listenable or better, and on the fast side the Hilliard’s Book 5 is exquisite. Choosing moderation, it may be noted that La Venexiana’s Book 4 (24:3) may be added to their Book 5 and La Compagnia’s Book 6 to encompass lovely renditions of half the total. On the other hand, do not overlook Longhini’s extensive and literate notes (in fluent translations) in each issue, treating both music and biography at considerable length.


All of the recordings cited are sung very well and recorded up close. If you started collecting Longhini, don’t hesitate to complete the set. Naxos prints texts and English translations in the booklets as well as posting them online, unlike for some of their other recent issues.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Classical Music

GESUALDO Madrigals, Book 4 • Kassiopeia Qnt • GLOBE 5224 (45:01 Text and Translation)


The first disc in this traversal of Gesualdo’s six books of madrigals arrived a couple of years ago (29:3). Wondering about the latest record number (the first book was numbered 5221), I found that the intervening numbers containing the second and third books of madrigals have already been issued, but not submitted for review. Apart from the old complete set of Gesualdo’s madrigals (still available), Book 4 has been recorded by Francesco Cera on Tactus and La Venexiana (24: 3). Cera seems to share the short playing time of the new disc, while La Venexiana adds three bonus madrigals from the second and fifth books and the Canzon francese to fill out the disc. Kassiopeia’s Book 1 was up against the more economical layout of Harry van der Kamp’s first three books of madrigals on a pair of discs, similar performances by two Dutch ensembles. Kassiopeia continues to give a fine account of the madrigals, singing at normal pitch, a third higher than La Venexiana’s transposed rendering and considerably faster in every madrigal without exception; the overall difference is eight minutes. The more relaxed tempos allow La Venexiana to bring out the affect of the chromaticisms. La Venexiana also uses lutes and a harpsichord, while Kassiopeia uses only voices. Since the field is not crowded, there is room for Kassiopeia’s intelligent traversal of this collection.


FANFARE: J. F. Weber

Classical Music

The Responsoria by Carlo Gesualdo, published in 1611, represent a remarkable emotional outpouring in sacred repertory from a composer who was living out his final years amidst melancholy thoughts and an increasingly precarious state of health. It was also significant that these Holy Week pieces should appear in the same year as the complex works in the Sixth Book of Madrigals: an association which La Compagnia del Madrigale are keen to make with their new recording of the Responsoria in a striking new release from Glossa. Having already responded to the stylistic subjectiveness of the madrigals the highly-skilled a cappella vocal ensemble (which includes singers of the calibre and experience of Giuseppe Maletto, Daniele Carnovich or Rossana Bertini) turns its attention to subject matter covering torment, suffering, blood and death. Over three CDs Gesualdo's creative musical response to the Passion of Christ is interspersed with spiritual madrigals from some of his best-known contemporaries (Luzzaschi, Marenzio, de Macque and Vinci), whose religious texts further underline the madrigalesque nature of the Responsoria. Once again, Marco Bizzarini supplies a fascinating booklet essay which places Gesualdo's music in a realistic rather than "hysterical" context.

A personality has who provoked considerable controversy over the centuries, Carlo Gesualdo (1566- 1613), aristocrat, musician and murderer of his first wife, is no less a composer whose music is marked by subtlety and refinement. His innovative Sixth Book of Madrigals, written two years before his death, exploits all harmonic, chromatic, and textural possibilities to meet the texts’ expressive requirements and proves to be a veritable masterpiece of the genre. After a first release devoted to the Italian composer’s sacred works, the Tenebrae Responsoria, Philippe Herreweghe and his Collegium Vocale Gent invite us to (re)discover his secular music for the 450th anniversary of his birth. In masterful fashion, they propose a delicate, expressive reading of this complex music, doing justice to the modernity of the musical language of the Prince of Venosa. The acoustics of the church in the little Tuscan village of Asciano, where the programme was recorded in 2015, provides an ideal sound setting for this music.

Although the madrigals of Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa constitute the best-known part of his oeuvre, his religious music is no less important, revealing a completely different facet of the composer. Aside from the Responsoria (1611), of which Philippe Herreweghe recently made a magnificent recording (LPH 010), most of Gesulado's religious music was published in 1603 under the title Sacrarum cantionum. Unlike the Responsoria, intended for Holy Week services, the motets of 1603 are settings of texts for all circumstances of the liturgical year. For this recording, made in the Santa Trinità abbey church in Venosa, ODHECATON has enriched the sound palette of its men's voices with a few instruments, including an ensemble of violas da gamba. Liuwe Tamminga counterpoints this programme with selected pieces by Giovanni Maria Trabaci and Giovanni de Macque on an historical organ of the Venosa region.

The Fourth Book displays an increased tendency towards chromatism, but short of the extreme experimentalism of the two following collections. Amidst the stormy and poignant intensity of pages like Sparge la morte or Moro, e mentre sospiro, there is still room for fleeting accents of gentleness and lightness, traces of luminosity and a certain ease in the movement of the high parts (perhaps an echo of the vocal charms of the ‘Trio of Dames’). Thus, this Fourth Book serves as a bridge in Gesualdo’s production. The result is a jewel that shines with a light at once brilliant and somber. By the way, does not the surprising façade of Gesualdo’s first residence in Ferrara – the Palace of Diamonds – produce the same impression? Perhaps the spirit of Ferrara speaks, in covert fashion, in these madrigals.

The murderous composer Carlo Gesualdo, Principe di Venosa, was also a lutenist extolled by his contemporaries. At the end of the sixteenth century he received the first two prototypes of the archlute from his colleague Alessandro Piccinini in Ferrara, one of which he kept. In the absence of surviving music for the lute by the composer himself, Bor Zuljan has imagined the sound world of the prince’s archlute: a kaleidoscope of fabulous and extreme sonorities on this extravagant instrument, from transcriptions of his vocal and instrumental music to the astonishing chromatic compositions of composers he is thought to have encountered, and whose work exerted an influence on his. Includes works by C. Gesualdo, A. Piccinini, J. H. Kapsberger, P. P. Melli, C. Saracini etc.

The only surviving version of Carlo Gesualdo’s First Book of Madrigals was printed in spring 1594 by the typographer Vincenzo Baldini. At the time, the composer was twenty-eight years old and had just left behind the murder of his wife, in 1590. In this first publication Gesualdo probably collected pieces composed earlier than 1591. The music is written by a young author, far away from the better-known experimental composer of later years, yet is clear and faultless, and often very effective. With this album, the members of La Compagnia del Madrigale complete the project which was initiated more than 20 years ago, by then under the name of La Venexiana: the recording of all six books of madrigals of Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, for Glossa. Thanks to their deep knowledge of the music and the poetry of the time, their beautiful voices and precise tuning, and their exquisite mastery in expressing the affetti contained in these pieces, they have definitely set a reference for this demanding repertoire.

Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) is one of the most fascinating composers. It is hard to escape the temptation of seeing in his madrigals the tortured reflection of his psyche, beginning with the murder he committed in 1590, when he caught his first wife Maria d’Avalos in blatant adultery with her lover Fabrizio Carafa. The madrigals of the fifth and sixth books are to Gesualdo what the black paintings are to Goya: works conceived in a state of solitude, with no limits on the artist’s imagination, born in enclosed spaces and used to moving around in their gloom. Gesualdo’s sixth book of madrigals contains some of the most extraordinary harmonic thinking in the history of Western music – it lives on the edge of modality, its chromatic lines forming chord progressions that still sound fresh and unpredictable to modern ears.