Gesualdo: Tenebrae

Vocal ensemble performance doesn't get any more technically polished or musically affecting than this offering from the Hilliard Ensemble--an example of what happens when a group of individual singers performs as a spiritual entity. Of course, the music--the liturgically solemn tenebrae responsories--makes a perfect medium for such a performance, but these works by late-16th/early 17th-century composer Carlo Gesualdo are notoriously difficult, owing to their unorthodox harmonic and melodic language. For this recording the Hilliards augmented the group's usual four male voices with three additional singers, countertenor, tenor, and bass, fully exploring and exploiting Gesualdo's rich tonal landscape while conveying the work's profound spirituality. The sonorities' effects are alternately chilling, unnerving, calming, and comforting. The sound is exemplary.