The Gesualdo Six photo by Sprague-Coolidge, CC BY-SA 4.0
The Gesualdo Six is a wonderful Renaissance choir. However, I had a numerical problem with its promotional material when I first saw them in 2018…
…which seems to be unresolved despite my pleas. The publicity material for The Gesualdo Six regularly shows seven people.
I’m not really one to talk, having recently been part of a six-person works-outing winning quiz combo known as “The FS Club 7”. But readers, many of whom are early music lovers, will surely know that the name is not a numerical claim, but a pun on the early music (i.e. some of it released even before the turn of the 21st century) pop combo, S Club 7.
But it is not my purpose in this piece to “bring it all back” in the matter of S Club 7’s ancient exploits, but rather to assess the wonderful world of Josquin’s Legacy, as sung by The Gesualdo Six.
While Josquin’s mostly late 15th century music formed the core of the concert, there were also pieces by his contemporaries, Jean Mouton & Antoine Brumel, plus several works by lesser known composers who followed a generation or so later.
It was a mixture of sacred music (both new and old testament liturgy) plus several regret/deploration pieces commemorating the death of fellow composers or patrons.
Here is a link to The Gesualdo’s promo vid for the album which this concert was surely (in part) aiming to help promulgate.
Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall concert programme.
The concert was a BBC Lunchtime concert, which, if you are reading this within a month of the broadcast, can still be heard on the BBC Sounds App – here.
The Wigmore Hall also streamed this one, so you can watch and listen here.
This was Janie’s first opportunity to see/hear The Gesualdo Six live and she was much taken with the group.
“The Gesualdo Six: great with singing, not so special when it comes to numbers.”
Not too bad a tag line.