Tag: The Gesualdo Six

The Renaissance Princes Of Heartbreak: The Gesualdo Six, Wigmore Hall, 23 June 2024

This was a wonderful concert and a lovely way for me and Janie to chill at the end of the weekend.

When I first saw The Gesualdo Six, coincidentally six years ago, I described them as the hottest boy band in the early music vocal consort world

Fading: The Hour Is At Hand, The Gesualdo Six, St John’s Smith Square, 28 March 2018

But now, having heard them and seen them some more, I realise that The Gesualdo Six are now beyond boy band. They are to 15th/16th century Chansons de Regretz what Taylor Swift is to the 21st century heartbreak song.

Further, the Ges-Ges Boys, much like Tay-Tay, are mastering the art of social media management. When Owain Park announced from the stage that “you can find us on TikTok”, I wondered:

  • whether he was joking,
  • how many members of the Wigmore hall audience understood what he meant by TikTok,
  • was I the only person in the Hall (other than the Ges-Ges Crew) who had a TikTok account.

I can’t be sure about the answer to the second and third question, but I can confirm that Owain Park wasn’t joking.

@thegesualdosix

Listen to this famous motet by Thomas Tallis. ‘If ye love me’ was composed in the 16th-century and is a perfect example of the enduring power of Renaissance polyphony. #singing #classicalmusic #music #choir #musician #church #song #cinematic #g6 #choral #classical #oldisgold #ancientmusic #polyphony #earlymusic #renaissance #fyp #foryoupage #fypシ #tallis

♬ original sound – The Gesualdo Six

They are also very good at merchandising. On my 2018 visit Owain tempted me to buy a pre-release version of their first album – English Motets (which includes the track embedded above from TikTok, as it happens). This time he persuaded me to be among the first to buy Queen Of Hearts, the latest album.

To be honest, I don’t really need much persuading and I can confirm that the Gesualdo Six recordings are excellent.

The Gesualdo team themselves staffed the merchandise and payment gadgets during the interval, chatting kindly (and at some cases at length) with the patrons who queued up to buy the recordings. I believe they did that all again at the end of the gig.

I wondered to myself whether Taylor Swift was doing this at her Wembley Stadium concerts – I have heard that she engages with her audience like no other. Possibly Tay-Tay is still there at Wembley, selling, signing and chatting.

So what did we hear at The Gesualdo Six gig, I hear you cry. Here is the stub from the Wigmore Hall website posting for this concert.

Almost all the stuff we heard was from this new Queen of Hearts album. Did I mention that it is available from The Gesualdo Six website – click here. We are loving listening to the albums. I also bought Josquin’s Legacy to add to my collection.

Before the interval we heard:

  • Antoine Brumel (c.1450-1512) Sub tuum praesidium (pub. 1520)
  • Josquin des Prez (c.1450-1521) O virgo prudentissima
  • Loyset Compère (c.1445-1518) Plaine d’ennuy/Anima mea
  • Antoine Brumel Sicut Lilium
  • Jean Mouton (c.1459-1522) Ave Maria … virgo serena (pub. c.1520)
  • Johannes Prioris (fl. c.1485-1512) Dulcis amica Dei (pub. 1508)
  • Owain Park (b.1993) Prière pour Marie (2023)
  • Jean Lhéritier (c.1480-1551) Sub tuum presidium a6

After the interval:

  • Josquin des Prez Petite camusette (pub. 1545)
  • Antoine de Févin (c.1470-1511) Fors seulement (pub. c.1515)
  • Jean Mouton De tous regretz
  • Anon Se je souspire/Ecce iterum attributed to Margaret of
  • Austria
  • Costanzo Festa (c.1485-1545) Quis dabit oculis (1514)
  • Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade (b.1989) Plaisir n’ai plus Commissioned by The Gesualdo Six (2023)
  • Johannes Prioris Consommo la vita mia
  • Nicolas Gombert (c.1495-1560) Tous les regretz (pub. 1544)

Below is a video of them singing Josquin’s O Virgo Prudentissima – one of the pieces we heard.

This group is the real deal. Janie and I floated home after the concert.

Josquin’s Legacy, The Gesualdo Six, Wigmore Hall, 10 October 2022

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…

Fading: The Hour Is At Hand, The Gesualdo Six, St John’s Smith Square, 28 March 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.

Fading: The Hour Is At Hand, The Gesualdo Six, St John’s Smith Square, 28 March 2018

I’d heard a lot about The Gesualdo Six – they are currently the hottest boy band of the early music vocal consort world – so I have been keen to see them for some time.

This early evening concert at St John’s Smith Square slot didn’t suit Janie on a Wednesday, so I made one of those unusual but no longer rare concert bookings just for me.

What a super short concert it was.

SJSS had been turned around for this concert, so the audience faces the organ, not the massive, tired-looking stage – something I know they’d been talking/thinking about, but until now I had not yet experienced it. Janie and I have thought for some time that this configuration would work better for soloists and small ensembles.

It does work better.

I got in early to bagsy a good seat and took a picture. You can see my coat draped across a front row seat.

SJSS Turned Around

Nice touch with the candles.

The hall soon filled up – several hundred people I would estimate – the largest audience I have seen at SJSS for a while. The idea of doing an early evening concert of this kind ahead of the main event certainly worked for this evening – perhaps also linked to the fact that this concert was part of the Holy Week Festival.

Here is a link to the SJSS web page for the concert that night – click here.

I’ve scraped that page to here, just in case the above link stops working.

The people sitting to the left of me clearly knew one of the singers, Guy James, who chatted with them briefly before the gig. The younger woman in that party asked him to throw in a pop song or two – but he shyly demurred, saying that he’d love to but it would probably get him into trouble with the others. Not very rock’n’roll.

I did and do have an arithmetical problem with this group. When I looked at the picture on their website – click here –and/ or the above SJSS web page and/or indeed the programme for the evening, I kept counting seven people in The Gesualdo Six.

I had a similar problem with the Jackson Five the previous week at The Ladbroke Arms, as reported in my piece – click here or below:

Dinner And Music Biz Chat With Simon Jacobs, Ladbroke Arms, 20 March 2018

A knowledgeable-sounding fellow sat next to me about five minutes before the start of the Gesualdo Six concert – he said that he had seen some of the performers before (e.g. Joseph Wicks recently) but never the entire ensemble together and was very excited to be getting to see them.

I mentioned my cardinal number problem – i.e. the matter of seven people comprising The Gesualdo Six, hoping for some insight from this knowledgeable fellow.

“I know, yes…tough isn’t it,” was that gentleman’s unhelpful reply.

But from now it’s all good news.

There were only six people in The Gesualdo Six on the night – which put me at my ease again.

The music was absolutely lovely.

Indeed, the opening number, Tallis’s Te Lucis Ante Terminum, was worth the price of admission alone (as sports commentators would tend to put it).

I don’t normally go for modern choral music mixed in with early music, but I was much taken by the several lullabies by Veljo Tormis, which contrasted nicely with the Byrd lullaby.

I also enjoyed Owain Park’s own piece, Phos Hilaron. I cannot honestly claim to have got much out of Joanna Marsh’s pieces, though.

But basically I loved the gig – they are a wonderful ensemble – so when Owain Park announced that we could buy pre-release copies (due out Easter Weekend) of the group’s debut album on exit, I was up there with my £12 like a shot.

You can order/buy the album from all the usual outlets or direct from the band’s site by clicking below:

English Motets (2018)

Below is a video from an unspecified place of The Gesualdo Six singing some Tallis – a piece from the album but not from the gig.

Likewise, the following piece of Thomas Tomkins (seen below in Ely Cathedral) is on the album but wasn’t on show at the gig:

They only sang one piece of Gesualdo on the night – not the following one, but I can’t let you sample The Gesualdo Six without Gesualdo himself:

Finally, below is a little documentary piece about the group from SJSS itself two years ago. They look unfeasibly young in the vid – they still look young but not THAT young. Two years is a long time for a boy band. Another couple of years on the road and they might look like The Rolling Stones by 2020.

All of this rather puts my own attempt at some seasonal, medieval-style performance into the shade:

Canticle For Lauds On The Third Day Of Easter: Deus Intellegit, Litorean Order, c1300