The things you learn

[mme_hardy]

I have an Allegri album I really love, A Sei Voci's "Miserere Mei, Messe, Motets", so I decided to go hunting for other Renaissance polyphony. I chose the Hilliard Ensemble's recording of the Gesualdo Tenebrae. The album notes commented, "Carlo Gesualdo's name will always conjure up a special image: When he discovered that his wife had been unfaithful, he had her and her lover murdered and left on his palace steps, impaled on the same sword. "

Well, golly. His second marriage, to a d'Este, was unhappy as well (big shock); Wikipedia comments, " According to Cecil Gray, 'She seems to have been a very virtuous lady ... for there is no record of his having killed her.'" Good to know. Wikipedia says that Gesualdo was tortured by guilt for the rest of his life, and that some the-life-is-the-work types attribute the difficulty and chromatic complexity of his music to guilt.

Again following Wiki links, I found the Concerto delle donne, an all-female group of singers who flourished at the court of Alfonso II di Farrara in the late 15th century. "The women performed up to six hours a day, either singing their own florid repertoire from memory, sight-reading from partbooks, or participating in the balletti as singers and dancers." I need to hunt up some of the music written for them.

In my 20s and 30s I used to spend time reading Britannica and cursing the difficulty of tracing cross-references; I'd grab a volume in the evening and read some of the good bits. Wikipedia, with all its problems, provides a similar experience without my having to get up out of my chair and grab a different volume.

Comments

[caulkhead]

I suppose 'special' is one word, though not the one I would have chosen - to the extent that I am wondering if it is a mangled translation (the one which springs to mind is 'besondere' - which could also be translated as 'one particular'). Either way, urgh.

I was looking up a piece I was going to suggest for our choir on Wikipedia just now, and was half charmed, have taken aback to see that it reads " It is one of the most rarely performed pieces by Brahms mostly due to its difficulty, leaving only more experienced choirs able to perform it.[citation needed]"

Maybe I am not in such a rush to suggest it after all.

[mme_hardy]

My immediate reaction is to wonder what choir it was written for. (See: the Queen of the Night and one particular soprano.)

[caulkhead]

It does seem to have an awful lot of sustained high passages.

[mme_hardy]

Josepha Hofer, Constanze Mozart's sister.

[caulkhead]

Ah! I meant the piece I was looking up - can't find out who it was written for, though. The Queen of Night is not so much sustained high passages as insanely high passages.

[mme_hardy]

I heard (on YouTube) an astonishing German soprano earlier this year who could actually make those notes musical. Blew my mind.

What's the piece?

[caulkhead]

Nanie.

A propos, a friend of a friend once requested "Der Holle Rache" as the exit music for her wedding. I believe she was talked out of it, eventually.

[mme_hardy]

But only because of soprano unavailability?

[caulkhead]

Somebody told her what the words meant.

[mme_hardy]

...

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

My sister-in-law had to be talked out of Greensleeves for her wedding. Alas, my love, you do me wrong? NOT HAPPENING.

[(Anonymous)]

So I don't think I believe Wikipedia on the subject of Nanie. Is it harder than the Requiem, which good amateur choruses sing all the time?

Also, one full score I viewed at IMSLP does not use treble clef, so the soprano part looks unusually high. This score uses treble clef. (http://javanese.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/3/3b/IMSLP109024-PMLP52824-Brahms_Werke_Band_19_Breitkopf_JB_94_Op_82_filter.pdf) The soprano part touches A and G but doesn't sit there.

[irontongue]

Forgot to lot in, and perhaps that's why the link didn't come out as clickable.

[caulkhead]

Oh, thank you! It hadn't occurred to me to look the score up online, for some reason. We've done the Requiem, which I don't recall as being particularly difficult, certainly not compared to some of the other things we've sung.

[irontongue]

You're welcome!

[legionseagle]

Gesualdo is one of the characters in David Pownall's Music to Murder By which is very creepy indeed (Pownall is the guy who put the lesbian sub text into Buck Ruxton which, given he was putting it on in the town where it happened, one of the victims' brother was still alive (and he always suspects that the daughter of the murderer attended one of the performances) caused a bit of an atmosphere).

[irontongue]

He is...sort of a character is Wesley Stace's brilliant "Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer," which has unending music-world insider stuff in it. The narrator is modeled on an early 20th c. British music critic, for example.

[mme_hardy]

Btw, the Hilliard Ensemble Gesualdo Tenebrae arrived, and it is *awesome*.

[irontongue]

That does not surprise. I've heard the Tenebrae on record, cannot recall the performers/recording. But there are lots of great Gesualdo recordings out there!

[mme_hardy]

This is, to my knowledge, the first time I've heard any Gesualdo.

[irontongue]

You have hours of listening pleasure in front of you!

[kore]

Carlo Gesualdo's name will always conjure up a special image

THAT'S ONE WAY OF PUTTING IT, YIKES

[oracne]

Have you tried any Ockeghem? You might like that as well.

My choir did Gesualdo's Tenebrae a number of years ago, and I briefly wrote about the experience here, if you're interested: http://oracne.livejournal.com/tag/gesualdo

[irontongue.livejournal.com]

Oh, you didn't know about Gesualdo? You are knowledgeable about so many things, I just assumed...Alex Ross wrote an article or two about him a few years back.

Are you looking for more polyphony? I can suggest some composers and maybe performances.