This season’s ‘Silverdale Renaissance’ concert featured the Gesualdo Six, an a cappella male vocal group. Their superb performance of the works of their namesake - Carlo Gesualdo - a sixteenth century Italian composer, was delivered over about 90 minutes, without an interval
The concert focused on Gesualdo’s three sets of Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Week, interspersed with his Lamentations of Jeremiah. For the entire time, the audience was silent, respecting the performers’ wish to save applause until the end.
We weren’t familiar with Gesualdo’s compositions and we were surprised at how modern some of it sounded. He made frequent use of dissonance and unusual time signatures to emphasise the suffering of Christ.
The effect was mesmerising. Outside, Storm Boelo was raging but inside we enjoyed sublime singing. The time flew by and before we knew it we were applauding the remarkable performance. After picking up a handful of CDs we made our way home, picking our way carefully past fallen trees.