Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir & Tonu Kaljuste
Release Date: 18 September 2015
Label: ECM New Series
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 028948118007
Genres: Classical Orchestral
Description
This absorbing project finds Australian composer Brett Dean and Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür drawing inspiration in very different ways from the music, life and times of Carlo Gesualdo and juxtaposes these reflections with Gesualdo's own music.
The music of Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (1566-1613) has exerted a powerful influence on composers down the ages. His highly-charged, mannerist, idiosyncratic vocal music constitutes "a gallery of dramatically-lit portraits of human emotions with a heavy emphasis on the extremes of joy and despair" (to quote former Hilliard Ensemble singer Gordon Jones).
Brett Dean's 'Carlo' (composed 1997) begins with pure Gesualdo from the 6th Book of Madrigals, then gradually enters a very 20th century sound-world. Through use of both sampled and real-time voices as well as increasingly intense strings Dean paints an hallucinatory picture of the Prince of Verona's state of mind as he is driven toward his violent crimes of passion (he murdered his wife and her lover when he caught them in flagrante delicto).
Erkki Sven Tüür's 'L'Ombra di Gesualdo' references the Gesualdo motet 'O crux benedicta' from the Cantiones sacrae, and Gesualdo's piece is also heard in an arrangement for strings by Tüür. The programme is completed by Tüür's 'Psalmody', which is without a Gesualdo-inspired subtext but it too cross-references older and newer music, within the narrower time-frame of Tüür's own oeuvre.
Personnel: Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, Tõnu Kaljuste (conductor)
Tracklisting
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica & Vida Mikneviciute
Arvo Part
Thomas Larcher
John Holloway Ensemble
Heinz Holliger & Anton Kernjak
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra & Tonu Kaljuste
Karlheinz Stockhausen Michaels Reise
Andras Schiff
Josef Krips
Atalanta Fugiens Orchestra; Vanni Moretto
The Orchestra Now; Leon Botstein
Yannick Nezet-Seguin; Orchestre Metropolitain de Montreal
Brussels Philharmonic, Kazushi Ono
Bohuslav Martinu Philharmonie, Friedrich Kleinhapl, Robert Kruzik
Sibylle Mahni; Andreas Spering; Brandenburger Symphoniker
Liepaja Symphony Orchestra, Atvars Lakstigala
