Description
We are delighted to present our seventh album, Byrd: Mass for five voices (2023) which was released on Friday 2 June 2023 and is now available to order. 
About the CD
William Byrd was born into a country tearing itself apart. In 1540, around the time of Byrd’s birth, King Henry VIII had just about finished his dismantling of England’s monasteries and convents, reminders of which exist in ruins around the country today. The Latin Mass was outlawed and substituted with a pared-down service, now in the vernacular. Writing music in a pre-Reformation style was a dangerous business, afforded only to those who courted royal favour. This was perhaps not the easiest time to navigate a career as a composer working in religious circles as a recusant Catholic. Yet Byrd was clever. He chose texts with heterodox meanings, such as ‘gallows texts’—Latin psalm verses uttered by priests about to be martyred—which described overcoming opponents in order to liberate (an allegorical) Jerusalem. Such texts were later allowed by the Church under Elizabeth I, who retained a fondness for elaborate ritual. At the heart of the collection of works on this album is Byrd’s Mass for five voices, probably the last of a set of three Masses he composed after his move from the Chapel Royal in London to Catholic hibernation in Stondon Massey, Essex. While the Mass text is ritual Latin, the music is deeply intertwined with the motets he wrote, many of which were composed with ‘notes as a garland to adorn certain holy and delightful phrases of the Christian rite’, as Byrd wrote in the preface to his second book of Gradualia (1607). Here we have selected a number of motets which complement the thematic, tonal and textural material of the Mass. Many of us grew up performing these works in churches and chapels around the UK, and it was a joy to record this music in All Hallows, Gospel Oak, the construction of which was completed some 280 years after Byrd’s death. While we could have chosen a more intimate, secluded venue to recreate the circumstances for which Byrd found himself composing, in preparing this music for record we found ourselves wanting to take the music off the page, released from the baggage of its creation, and to enjoy the full expressive potential of the writing. These Latin works are all triumphant statements of belief, exhibiting great power and tenderness, and all with a degree of contentment despite the tribulations surrounding their creation. We hope this comes across in our performances—both live and on disc—and look forward to discovering more of Byrd’s compositions throughout our careers. Owain Park © 2023
Tracklist
Ave verum corpus William Byrd
Afflicti pro peccatis nostris William Byrd
Tristitia et anxietas William Byrd
Ave Maria William Byrd
Circumdederunt me William Byrd
Emendemus in melius William Byrd
Lamentations (De lamentatione Jeremiae prophetae) William Byrd
Mass for five voices William Byrd
Reviews
Diapason | November 2023
“Owain Park’s male chamber ensemble lends the work a discreet, intimate mood, probably in accordance with its secretive nature … In the motets added as a complement, the harmonic interlacing of the Ave Verum and the stunning expressiveness of the Circumdederunt hold our attention, offering a more complex side of Byrd, as does their contrapuntal writing.”
Limelight, Steve Moffat | September 2023
★★★★★
“A gem of an album from the young and dynamic Gesualdo Six under their director Owain Park. … The Six do this work full justice, with the sweet and lithe tenors Wicks and Cooter folding beautifully around James’ pure falsetto. Craddock’s voice has a distinctive flutter while Park and Mitchell provide the rich bedrock. Similarly impressive are the Lamentations which follow, with this superbly produced collection ending serenely with Jerusalem, Jerusalem.”
BR-KLASSIK, von Thorsten Preuß | August 2023
“They sing with an incredible sovereignty, full of warmth and gentleness and with such an instrumental colour scheme that one sometimes wonders whether there are really six people of flesh and blood at work or not a heavenly wind ensemble. Superbly beautiful, how the six voices merge into a single breathing organism, completely in the tradition and also at the level of the legendary Hilliards. And so this album is a brilliant business card for one of the currently best acapella ensembles. And a nice example of how art overcomes all confessional boundaries. Probably also the strict Elizabeth I would have secretly shed a tear of emotion if she had been immersed in Byrd’s mystical music with The Gesualdo Six.”
The Guardian, Fiona Maddocks | July 2023
“Pure in tone, intonation impeccable, the Gesualdo Six sing with precision and fluency, every line of polyphony audible. The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars, Winchester Cathedral Choir and others have made top recordings of this repertoire. The chamber scale of the Gesualdo Six creates an authentic intimacy for works that might well have risked the lives of those who performed it.”
All Music, James Mannheim | July 2023
“These are brilliant performances. The motets are artfully sequenced so as to place the mass movements under the microscope, and these six singers, if possible, are getting even more uncannily accurate with each new outing.”
