Lammermuir Festival: Gesualdo Six
This concert, given by the English vocal group, the Gesualdo Six, in St Mary’s in Haddington as part of this year’s Lammermuir Festival was a triumph. Entitled ‘Josquin’s Legacy’, it focussed on the music which Josquin Desprez and his followers produced, particularly at the court of the Dukes of Este at Ferrara in the early 16th Century. It also featured several works lamenting the deaths of both Johannes Ockeghem, Josquin’s illustrious predecessor, and also the unfortunate Anne, Duchess of Brittany and Queen Consort of France.
The restored parish church of St Mary’s in Haddington, which had languished partially roofless for centuries since Henry VIII’s Rough Wooing in the 16th century, was the perfect venue for such a concert. Subtly lit, and arranged safely for a Covid- aware audience, it offered a beautiful acoustic for this young group of singers, originally from Cambridge. Frequently changing numbers within the context of a six-man team, and genially introducing the various sections, they provided an interesting programme of music from the period when Renaissance music was going through a fundamental change from the older contrapuntal style of the Flemish and English masters into the more homophonic style, simpler and more fitted to the text, of the Mediterranean composers, of whom Palestrina was the acknowledged master.
The concert lasted just over an hour and featured a mixture of Marian motets by Josquin and his contemporaries, extolling the virtues of the Virgin Mary, while drawing attention to her femininity through works from the ‘Song of Songs’. The central climactic work was Josquin’s great ‘Lament on the death of Ockeghem’, ‘Nymphes des Bois’, with words by the Burgundian writer, Jean Molinet. There followed a serious of ‘Regretz Chansons’ by other composers, lamenting the sad fate of Duchess Anne of Brittany, who died at the age of 36, after bearing some 20 or so children, most of whom died. Between these chansons, the baritone of the group sang plainchant versions of the ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’. If this sounds all terribly grim and dreary, it was not at all, as this excellent group sang in a beautiful and homogenous way with clearly articulated parts, blending perfectly. They are fortunate to have, as part of their six-voice line-up of countertenor, two tenors, a baritone and two basses, a particularly fine countertenor, Guy James, and a firm resonant bass in Owain Park, as second bass and director. These two, at the outer ends of the group, give a fine context to the overall sound and allow the inner voices scope for a good dynamic range, and mean that this in my opinion is one of the finest vocal groups you could hope to hear. The icing on the cake was their encore item, the utterly sublime ‘O Nata Lux’ by Thomas Tallis, the most beautiful small motet ever written, sung gloriously by the Gesualdo Six.
If you switch to the EMR Blog now, you will find a much more detailed report on this concert, along with information about the music and the group.
