Gesualdo : Responsoria

   in Early Music Today (Jun, 2014)
In the Christian calendar there is no event for which believers are more ineluctably prepared than Easter. Passion Sunday, Palm Sunday, Holy Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday: this procession of eventful days heightens the agonising expectancy for Easter Sunday with its outpourings of joy. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday of Holy Week, the offices of Matins and Lauds – with their three nocturns of readings, antiphons, psalms, versicles and responses – are celebrated together as Tenebræ. Carlo Gesualdo’s 1611 collection of six-part settings of the responses have long been regarded as the emotional height of his sacred music: they were published in the same year as his sixth book …