Music / Gesualdo Tenebrae, Luminescence Chamber Singers, Wesley Uniting Church, March 29. Reviewed by GRAHAM McDONALD.

Carl Gesualdo was an Italian prince of the late 16^th century, infamous for killing his first wife and her lover.

Apart from that incident, he is best remembered for his sacred music, especially six books of madrigals and his Tenebrae Responsoria from which this concert’s material was chosen.

The Luminescence Chamber Singers were augmented with an extra tenor, Jack Jordan, in addition to the five usual members giving them a mix of soprano, mezzo soprano, two tenors, baritone and bass-baritone. They were without Roland Peelman as guest director for this performance.

The performance was a little over 60 minutes, chanted psalms and Old Testament texts alternating with three sets of three motets. The opening Psalm 70 was chanted by the male voices before the quite startling polyphony of the first set of motets.

This was generally in the style of unaccompanied 16^th century church vocal music but using more jagged rhythmic patterns and chromatic harmonies that must have been quite shocking to both singers and listeners at the time.

It is often just one passing dissonant note in a chord that grabs the attention and then is gone until another a few bars further along. This is quite different music to what would be expected of sacred vocal music of the late 16^th and early 17^th century as the renaissance gave way to the baroque.

The chanted intervening sections, all done with combinations of the male voices, provided a calming and simpler break between the complex motets. The addition of the female voice in the motets provided a distinguishing musical contrast

Peelman’s usual role would be discreetly conducting from a chair in front. Without him there was a lot of watching and listening, but the performance certainly did not lack anything. As we have come to expect from Luminescence the singing was exemplary.

The final Psalm 51 alternated two-line stanzas from two or three male voices with the full sextet. When it ended there was a few seconds of silence before the audience responded. The applause grew and was sustained as the audience realised that they had just heard something quite remarkable.