Some of the most atmospheric music from the numerous Liturgical settings in Holy Week is that composed for the Office of Tenebrae. Tomas Luis de Victoria’s are the most well-known, but equally beautiful and arguably more dramatic are the settings composed by Gesualdo. They have an intensity unrivalled in most music of that time owing to the extraordinary and sudden harmonic shifts, which at times sound almost contemporary, and rhythmic outbursts led on occasion by a single word. It is sung by a small consort of Tenebrae members – Grace Davidson, Julia Doyle, Jeremy Budd, David de Winter, Gabriel Crouch & Jimmy Holliday. They are paired here with Couperin’s beautiful and mesmerizing Leçons de Ténèbres – performed by sopranos Grace Davidson and Julia Doyle, alongside continuo players Steven Devine and Jonathan Rees (viola da gamba).

REVIEW:

The dividing line between historical performances of Renaissance and Baroque music is fairly sharp, as is the expertise required in each field. One rarely hears Bach and Josquin performed together, despite a certain easy density of polyphony common to both, but the small choir Tenebrae and director Nigel Short break the rule here, with striking results. The group has recorded settings of the Maundy Thursday musical Office for which it is named several times: the "Tenebrae," perhaps named for the darkness that followed the extinguishing of a series of candles, has called forth moody, atmospheric settings down through the ages, and it's ideal for an experiment of this kind. Short and Tenebrae, who have already recorded other settings of these texts, pair the three Leçons de Ténèbres of François Couperin -- surviving sections of a mostly lost set written for the aging Louis XIV and published in the early 1710s -- with the Tenebrae Responsories of Carlo Gesualdo. They're very different works: the Couperin pieces are for a pair of sopranos with continuo, here an organ and viola da gamba, and the Gesualdo for a choir that was probably, like Tenebrae, quite small. Yet Short delivers an intensity that links the pieces, and the Gesualdo is especially impressive. These settings are sacred counterparts to the extreme experimental chromaticism of the last books of Gesualdo madrigals. Many vocal groups tone these down on the theory that sacred music had a different language, but Short shows the virtues of bringing full intensity. The Couperin, with two slightly contrasting sopranos, is also highly atmospheric. This is an ideal album for Holy Week reflections, respecting the power of the texts, and it is a major sacred music release.

-- AllMusicGuide.com (James Manheim)