CARLO GESUALDO
Tenebrae Responses for Good Friday (Responsoria,
1611)
Taverner Choir/Andrew
Parrott
SONY SK 62977 [67.18]
My review of this disc is taken from an advance copy without benefit of the
notes or texts. For this reason I cannot comment on the actual notes etc
supplied by Sony with the product sold in the shops. I should also declare
that I review this disc as a complete innocent in this genre with little
knowledge. I did however know that Peter Warlock and Cecil Gray (in their
1926 book) had a high regard for the man whose claim to infamy I will not
bore you with - so often has the story been told and so disconnected is that
story with this splendid music.(but see)
The music beams with many calculated and variegated timbres. Light and strange
dissonances abound. Sample the revelatory Omnes Amici Mei for a complexity
and passion not at all Tallis-like. The very best tracks ripple with great
sensuality, with melismatic shakes and trills. This music is the aural equivalent
of aromatic coffee - rich in tones and overtones. Some tracks, it has to
be said, are rather chaste and a little unengaging. These monastic and cloistered
sequences (as in Antiphon track 8) set the other tracks in adventurously
dissonant contrast. But return to the light with the intertwining vocal lines
of passion-invoking heat as in the lunar-blooming tone of the altos in
Tenebrae Factae Sunt. The wondering wander of Tradiderunt Me (17)
is sheerly lovely but what a bump to encounter the sort of boringly functional
music you find in track 18. The best of this music reminded me of the erotic
madrigals of Monteverdi - best not to underestimate such music. It has a
modern sensuality you may not automatically associate with the works of this
era.
Reviewer
Rob Barnett
