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The 16th Century's answer to Roman Polanski
Choral Arts Society's Gesualdo program (1st review)
Steve Cohen
The Choral Arts program based on the music of Carlo Gesualdo was daring, and not just because the composer was a triple murderer.
Some people feel uneasy when they attend a Roman Polanski film, remembering that the great film director escaped punishment for drugging and seducing a 13-year-old girl. That's nothing compared with what Gesualdo did.
The 16th-Century Italian slaughtered his wife and her lover, stabbing them dozens of times, then allegedly killed his infant son by bashing in his head because he doubted the boy's paternity... and he was never convicted nor punished. He lived 29 more years in comfort and luxury. That's because he was the prince of Venosa, when Italy's city-states were autonomous and no civil authority was greater than his. (He was the Pope's nephew to boot.)
Gesualdo must have felt guilt, however, for in later years he hired a man to whip him daily. He also composed a series of madrigals with sacred texts about death and divine judgment.
Gesualdo's felony rap sheet aside, the really daring element in the Choral Arts program was the juxtaposition of his music with three startling 20th-Century compositions by Benjamin Britten, plus a setting of the Lord's Prayer that Igor Stravinsky wrote in homage to Gesualdo's style.
Matthew C. Glandorf, artistic director of Choral Arts, appropriately titled the program Tenebrae, Latin for "shadows" or "darkness." Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsoria de Sabbato Sancto was composed for services during Holy Week, observing the death of Jesus, when distinctive ceremonies included the extinguishing of candles while prayers and psalms were chanted.
Christ in World War II
Gesualdo's texts dealt with weeping and covering oneself with ashes. That litany was interrupted by Britten's setting of the near-slaughter of Isaac by his father Abraham. Then Gesualdo's music resumed, as the chorus sang about the gates of death and how the sun was darkened. Back again to Britten and his canticle, Still Falls the Rain, a setting of Edith Sitwell's 1941 poem about Christ on the cross in the midst of World War II. It continued the mood with lines like "dark as the world of man, black as our loss."
More responses came from Gesualdo, about going down into a pit among the dead. Then Britten's setting of T.S. Eliot's mysterious poem, Journey of the Magi, described the birth of Jesus as "hard and bitter agony... like our death."
As you can see, the subject matter was relevant. The music, though, was almost 400 years apart. Britten's Still Falls the Rain, in particular, presented a virtuosic demonstration of French horn expressiveness that was bold and in-your-face, in contrast to the formality of 16th-Century religious motets. (Katy Ambrose's horn playing was spectacular as she accompanied tenor Steven Bradshaw.) But Gesualdo's music held its own because his writing far transcended the norm in his time.
His own boss
Gesualdo continually had the singing group scoop into strange chords that seemed to be written in different keys. His harmonies used the entire chromatic scale, including the half steps that were avoided by proper musicians of his era.
Perhaps this bold originality came because Gesualdo was his own boss and didn't have to please any patron. Or perhaps his leap into a strange musical landscape was connected to the madness that led him to murder.
As a layperson might put it, he specified notes that were "between the cracks." That's an imprecise analogy, of course, because no keyboard instrument was involved. Glandorf conducted the 35-member chorale a capella. The singing was pitch-perfect, with excellent enunciation and great variety of color.
One complaint
The program ended with Psalm 51, Miserere, which included the words: "Have mercy on me, O God... Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me."
My only complaint about the evening: Why use the Psalm 51 of Gregorio Allegri, a priest and composer born 16 years after Gesualdo? Allegri's music is beautiful, including an off-stage vocal quartet in which soprano Veronica Chapman Smith soared to several high C's. But why couldn't we hear Gesualdo's composition of that psalm, in which he wrote imploring musical repetitions with chromatic polyphony in a low vocal tessitura?♦
To read another review by Tom Purdom, click here.
Some people feel uneasy when they attend a Roman Polanski film, remembering that the great film director escaped punishment for drugging and seducing a 13-year-old girl. That's nothing compared with what Gesualdo did.
The 16th-Century Italian slaughtered his wife and her lover, stabbing them dozens of times, then allegedly killed his infant son by bashing in his head because he doubted the boy's paternity... and he was never convicted nor punished. He lived 29 more years in comfort and luxury. That's because he was the prince of Venosa, when Italy's city-states were autonomous and no civil authority was greater than his. (He was the Pope's nephew to boot.)
Gesualdo must have felt guilt, however, for in later years he hired a man to whip him daily. He also composed a series of madrigals with sacred texts about death and divine judgment.
Gesualdo's felony rap sheet aside, the really daring element in the Choral Arts program was the juxtaposition of his music with three startling 20th-Century compositions by Benjamin Britten, plus a setting of the Lord's Prayer that Igor Stravinsky wrote in homage to Gesualdo's style.
Matthew C. Glandorf, artistic director of Choral Arts, appropriately titled the program Tenebrae, Latin for "shadows" or "darkness." Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsoria de Sabbato Sancto was composed for services during Holy Week, observing the death of Jesus, when distinctive ceremonies included the extinguishing of candles while prayers and psalms were chanted.
Christ in World War II
Gesualdo's texts dealt with weeping and covering oneself with ashes. That litany was interrupted by Britten's setting of the near-slaughter of Isaac by his father Abraham. Then Gesualdo's music resumed, as the chorus sang about the gates of death and how the sun was darkened. Back again to Britten and his canticle, Still Falls the Rain, a setting of Edith Sitwell's 1941 poem about Christ on the cross in the midst of World War II. It continued the mood with lines like "dark as the world of man, black as our loss."
More responses came from Gesualdo, about going down into a pit among the dead. Then Britten's setting of T.S. Eliot's mysterious poem, Journey of the Magi, described the birth of Jesus as "hard and bitter agony... like our death."
As you can see, the subject matter was relevant. The music, though, was almost 400 years apart. Britten's Still Falls the Rain, in particular, presented a virtuosic demonstration of French horn expressiveness that was bold and in-your-face, in contrast to the formality of 16th-Century religious motets. (Katy Ambrose's horn playing was spectacular as she accompanied tenor Steven Bradshaw.) But Gesualdo's music held its own because his writing far transcended the norm in his time.
His own boss
Gesualdo continually had the singing group scoop into strange chords that seemed to be written in different keys. His harmonies used the entire chromatic scale, including the half steps that were avoided by proper musicians of his era.
Perhaps this bold originality came because Gesualdo was his own boss and didn't have to please any patron. Or perhaps his leap into a strange musical landscape was connected to the madness that led him to murder.
As a layperson might put it, he specified notes that were "between the cracks." That's an imprecise analogy, of course, because no keyboard instrument was involved. Glandorf conducted the 35-member chorale a capella. The singing was pitch-perfect, with excellent enunciation and great variety of color.
One complaint
The program ended with Psalm 51, Miserere, which included the words: "Have mercy on me, O God... Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me."
My only complaint about the evening: Why use the Psalm 51 of Gregorio Allegri, a priest and composer born 16 years after Gesualdo? Allegri's music is beautiful, including an off-stage vocal quartet in which soprano Veronica Chapman Smith soared to several high C's. But why couldn't we hear Gesualdo's composition of that psalm, in which he wrote imploring musical repetitions with chromatic polyphony in a low vocal tessitura?♦
To read another review by Tom Purdom, click here.
What, When, Where
Choral Arts Society, "Tenebrae: Shadows of Gesualdoâ€: Stravinsky, Pater Noster; Gesualdo, Tenebrae Responsoria de Sabbato Sancto; Britten, “Canticlesâ€: Abraham and Isaac, Still falls the rain, The Journey of the Magi; Allegri, Miserere Mei (Psalm 51). Matthew C. Glandorf, conductor. April 8, 2011 at St. Mark’s Church, 1625 Locust St. (215) 240-6417 or www.choralarts.com.
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