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Gesualdo - Sesto Libro di Madrigali 1611

£14.51

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Label: Glossa

Cat No: GCD922801

Barcode: 8424562228016

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 14th January 2013

Works

Gesualdo, Carlo

Madrigali libro sesto (Madrigals Book 6)

Artists

La Compagnia del Madrigale

Works

Gesualdo, Carlo

Madrigali libro sesto (Madrigals Book 6)

Artists

La Compagnia del Madrigale

About

To sense the emotional charge coursing through Carlo Gesualdo at the time when he was composing his Sixth Book of Madrigals, there is no better starting point than a thrilling new recording being issued on Glossa from La Compagnia del Madrigale.

Some of the finest singers in the madrigal repertoire today – including Giuseppe Maletto, Daniele Carnovich and Rossana Bertini, who have been refining their a cappella artistry for over more than 20 years with groups such as La Venexiana and Concerto Italiano – now restore warmth, pictorial beauty and richness to one of the most complex cycles in all music.

This marks the group’s triumphant entry onto a label which has always made the exploration of the Italian madrigal repertory one of its cornerstones.

Allied to the ensemble’s musical reading is a reevaluation of the essence of the madrigalism of Gesualdo (the Prince of Venosa) by Marco Bizzarini in an absorbing accompanying essay, which draws upon many reactions to the music made during the composer’s own lifetime. Bizzarini highlights the extraordinary beauty, the intense expression of the sentiments and the mastery of counterpoint in Gesualdo’s “23 canapés of caviar” (as Stravinsky termed them).

This new interpretation, and its wealth of nuances, offered by La Compagnia del Madrigale majestically surmounts all the dissonances and difficulties in these madrigals to lay bare the expressive intensity of the music. Graced by an attractive cover design, wholly in keeping with standards of the house, this new recording of Gesualdo’s Sixth Book is a joy to behold and read, as well as to listen to.

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Se la mia morte brami
2

Belta poi che t'assenti
3

Resta di darmi noia
4

Mille volte il di moro
5

Deh, come invan sospiro
6

Io pur respiro in cosi gran dolore
7

Candido e verdi fiore
8

Ardo per te, mio bene
9

Moro, lasso, al mio duolo
10

Quando ridente e bella

Europadisc Review

Of the various musical anniversaries being observed in 2013, the one marking 400 years since the death of Carlo Gesualdo is among the most notable and timely. Notable because Gesualdo was unquestionably one of the most original musical minds of his or any other generation, and timely because a re-evaluation of his output free from sensationalised accounts of his biography is long overdue. Those qualities in his music that seem to us so strikingly 'modern' - its challenging chromaticism, dissonances and startling juxtapositions of mood - have in the past been put down to the strange genius of an unhinged mind and soul. Yet they are better understood as part of a tradition of highly sophisticated vocal writing epitomised by the early 17th-century Italian madrigal, with its own constantly refined and developing sets of rules and conventions.

The Glossa label has already proved that Gesualdo's music can stand on its own merits, with benchmark recordings of the fourth and fifth books of his madrigals by the excellent Italian ensemble La Venexiana. To these is now added the Sixth Book, performed by the aptly named La Compangie del Madrigali, which brings together singers from La Venexiana and some of their equally prestigious colleagues from Concerto Italiano. The results are utterly spellbinding. The Sixth Book (1611), with its texts often dwelling on the themes of mortality and death, stand at the summit of Gesualdo's art. Here it enjoys performances that are as close to definitive as one could hope. Every nuance is lovingly shaped, the often startling harmonic changes and mood swings relished and exploited to maximum effect, dynamics and phrasing exquisitely moulded. The famous Moro, lasso, al mio duolo is remarkably vivid, but so too are all the other works. Even the lighter hearted Quando ridente e ballo which ends the collection makes its mark.

In the same week, another important Gesualdo release comes from Harmonia Mundi. Conductor and composer James Wood is better known to audiences of contemporary music, but he has spent nearly three years reconstructing the missing bassus and sextus parts to the second book of the Sacrae Cantiones (1603). Although not the first such attempt, this is certainly the most thorough and convincing, meaning that this long 'lost' work, which constitutes fully one third of Gesualdo's sacred output, can at last be heard by modern audiences. In his notes, Wood describes how completing the missing parts meant reconstructing the set of 'rules' by which Gesualdo composed, like filling in the missing words of a crossword. A musical sudoku might be another analogy, yet the results are far from academic. Framed at either end by the Miserere and Benedictus from Gesualdo's Responsaries for Holy Week, the individual motets are grouped here according to subject: Prayers for Salvation, Despair and Weeping, Peace and Hope and Praise and Thanks. The dry recording suggests perhaps the intimacy of a private chapel, and the results are deeply fascinating.

Both discs come with full notes, texts and translations; for the Sacrae Cantiones, there are additional online resources outlining in more detail the highly involved process of reconstruction. Either one of these remarkable releases is likely to provide many hours of engrossing listening; together, they make an irresistible package.