If you like The King's Singers, you'll love this CD! Gesualdo: Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday offers a small slice from the liturgy used for Holy Week. All tracks are superbly performed. The voices weave together to form a solid fabric of stunning polyphony. The responsories, here, are divided into three sets beginning with lessons from the Lamentations of Jeremiah. Gesualdo, an eccentric Italian prince and one of the Renaissance's more innovative composers, is best remembered for killing his wife and her lover while they were in bed together. His guilt over this shocking and passionate act is said to be mirrored in his music with its chromatic and often indulgent lines. The music is liturgical in nature, but this recording can be appreciated inside and out of the sanctuary. |
