Description
We are delighted to present our ninth album, Queen of Hearts (2024) which was released on Friday 28 June 2024 and is now available to order.
About the CD Over the past few years, it has been a joy to delve further into the rich tapestry of musical works that inspired our earlier album Josquin’s legacy. Choosing the repertoire for a recording is a particularly exciting challenge, requiring careful selection of a handful of pieces that weave together to create a compelling story.
Josquin’s legacy explored the cross-currents of texts and the movement of ‘Oltremontani’ composers (from the Franco-Flemish School who came ‘over the Alps’ to northern Italy) as they travelled around Renaissance Europe. As we developed our concert programmes for performance, a new thread emerged: music that connected the queenly courts of Europe. There are several fantastic and beautifully illuminated sources containing music written for these courts, and many of them are preserved in the United Kingdom.
On this album, we explore music that venerates the Virgin Mary—the ‘regina caelorum’—and that memorializes her terrestrial counterparts, highlighting the interwoven lives of Anne of Brittany, Margaret of Austria, and—in England—Anne Boleyn and Mary Tudor. We feature works which build new upon old, in particular a number of motet-chansons where sacred Latin texts are presented alongside contemporary courtly concerns in the vernacular. Just as medieval Catholic liturgy appropriated the Song of Songs to venerate the Blessed Virgin Mary, motet-chansons allowed court composers to work Song of Songs texts into secular music for the court, blurring the distinction between heavenly and earthly queens.
The concluding piece in our programme is the remarkable Ego flos campi by Clemens non Papa, composed for seven voices. Recording this work was a poignant moment for the ensemble, as it was the last track we recorded with our outgoing bass, Samuel Mitchell, who has been with us for seven years. It was wonderful to have Alasdair Austin with us to complete the line-up. We have thoroughly enjoyed putting together this collection, and our particular thanks go to Guy James for his work researching and preparing editions of the music. I hope we have captured something of the intrigue and excitement we feel when singing this repertoire, and look forward to how this programme might develop in the coming years. Owain Park © 2024
Reviews
Presto Recordings of the Year – Finalist 2024
“Moments of the most tender beauty, delivered by seven male singers with an unflagging ensemble spirit. If listeners don’t go weak at the knees at the warmly immaculate opening chords, then I suggest a hospital visit” – The Times 20 Best Classical Albums of 2024 (Geoff Brown)
“It is thoroughly researched … The repertoire is thoughtfully chosen and cogently explained. It is also beautifully performed, with the ensemble’s characteristic warm sound bringing the music fully to life. … The voices are well balanced … The dark bass voices supply a sonorous foundation. … Overall, Queen of Hearts engages the listener both intellectually and artistically.” – American Record Guide
★★★★★ Performance | ★★★★★ Recording
“The poignant theme of “regretz” in its various manifestations – sorrow, remorse, grief or lamentation – pervades this new recording by British vocal ensemble The Gesualdo Six … Throughout, The Gesualdo Six offer up introspective and expressive readings … it is impossible to find flaw with the ensemble’s matchless singing.” – BBC Music Magazine (Kate Bolton-Prociutti)
“[The group’s] strengths are on full display from the opening of the very first piece, Brumel’s Sub tuum praesidium, an effectively simple Marian prayer whose chordal opening shows off the finely integrated power of the perfectly matched lower voices to great effect. This darkly sonorous texture is at its best in some of the larger-scale pieces such as the well-known seven-voice Ego flos campi by Clemens non Papa, and above all in Josquin’s architecturally towering masterpiece Praeter rerum seriem. … All in all this is a treasure trove of works, some little known and rarely performed, in a wide variety of styles and vocal scorings spanning the first half of the 16th century. Beautifully sung and meticulously researched, it will generously repay repeated hearings.” – Gramophone (Iain Fenlon)
“Throughout, warm vocal blend and a sense of shared artistic intimacy underline the exquisitely plangent programming. … Such heart-rending singing would surely have moved even Carroll’s Queen of Hearts to spare a few heads.” – Limelight (Tony Way)
Tracklist
Sub tuum praesidium Antoine Brumel
Praeter rerum seriem Josquin des Prez
Plaine d’ennuy / Anima mea Loyset Compère
Mille regretz Josquin des Prez
Sicut lilium inter spinas Antoine Brumel
Secretz regretz Pierre de La Rue
Quis dabit oculis? Constanzo Festa
Prière pour Marie Owain Park
Du tout plongiet / Fors seulement Antoine Brumel
Ista est speciosa Antonius Divitis
Tota pulchra es Jean Mouton
Salve regina Jean L’héritier
Plaisir n’ai plus Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade
De tous regretz Jean Mouton
Fors seulement Antoine de Févin
Consommo la vita mia Johannes Prioris
Tous les regretz Nicolas Gombert
Ego flos campi a 7 Jacobus Clemens non Papa
