Responsoria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae spectantia
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GESUALDO
Responsoria et alia ad Officium Hebdomadae Sanctae spectantia
La Compagnia del Madrigale
[ Glossa / 3 CD ]
Release Date: Saturday 1 November 2014
This item is currently out of stock. It may take 6 or more weeks to obtain from when you place your order as this is a specialist product.
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 pieces for Holy Week should appear in the same year as the complex Sixth Book of Madrigals: an association which La Compagnia del Madrigale are keen to emphasise in this striking new recording for Glossa. Having already wowed the critics with the madrigals, La Compagnia, which includes singers of the calibre and experience of Giuseppe Maletto, Daniele Carnovich and Rossana Bertini, turns its attention to subject matter covering torment, suffering, blood and death.
Over 3 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. Also included are two comparative rarities from Gesualdo's sacred output, 'In te Domine speravi' and 'Ne reminiscaris, Domine'.
"This new recording...surpasses all others. The singers not only reveal the depths of Gesualdo's emotional understanding, but also his formal, harmonic and textural control...La Compagnia del Madrigale are sensitive to every word of the text as well as to every note of the music. All in all, a superb recital." (BBC Music Choral & Song Choice July 2014)
"This is devotional music of mesmerising beauty, the state-of-the-art performances interspersed with spiritual madrigals by Luzzaschi, Marenzio and Vinci...This intense, boldly chromatic music of lamentation is rarely heard Eastertide material, especially programmed as comprehensively as here by the six elite singers." (Sunday Times)
"the group's meticulous attention to every verbal nuance and to all the chromatic inflections and dissonant clashes in Gesualdo's often tortured harmonies makes its point. It's wonderfully accomplished singing, very unlike any other performance of these strangely compelling pieces that I've heard, and thought-provoking at the same time." (Guardian)
