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Track(s) taken from CDA68404

Maria wallt zum Heiligtum

composer
6vv; original language version of 'When to the temple Mary went'
author of text
paraphrasing the Song of Simeon; adapted by Eccard

The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park (director)
Studio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
CD-Quality:
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Recording details: September 2022
Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge, United Kingdom
Produced by Adrian Peacock
Engineered by David Hinitt
Release date: November 2023
Total duration: 3 minutes 21 seconds
 

Reviews

‘The Three Kings brought gifts, and the vocal ensemble arrive laden in turn with armfuls of curious and unexpected offerings, all performed with meticulous care and musicality. Musical gold is in particularly generous supply. It glows from Pierre de Manchicourt’s Illuminare, Jerusalem, text flickering in brilliant strands of imitative polyphony, intricately woven together here: vertical clarity never sacrificed to horizontal direction. It radiates from the swelling ebb and flow of Lassus’s Tribus miraculis and Josh Cooter’s solo Omnes de Saba (the quality of the plainchant singing throughout is exemplary), as well as from Park’s own O send out thy light, close-set chords engulfing the ear in thick warmth—a contrast to the more diffuse softness of Joanna Marsh’s In winter’s house … while some ensembles blend through mutual imitation and similarity, The Gesualdo Six manage to preserve the colours of the individual voices while finding common ground. It’s this breadth—of colour, tone, gesture—that gives these performances their appeal’ (Gramophone)

‘Chant performances on recordings tend to be somewhat perfunctory and dull, but here each item is performed with marvellous attention to both phrasing, style and message … the singers are at their brilliant best in pieces that demand gentle, embracing harmonic blending—for example in Johannes Eccard’s Maria wallt zum Heiligtum, in Howells’s Here is the little door, and in Mirabile mysterium where the Slovenian composer Handl serves up exotic shifts of chromatic colouring … there are many engrossing and lovely musical experiences here’ (BBC Music Magazine)» More

‘One of my favourite new Christmas albums, from The Gesualdo Six directed by Owain Park. Wonderfully evocative singing describing Pärt’s almost instrumental sounds … if you want the finest possible celebration of hope and joy, renewal and rebirth, it’s hard to beat this. Cornelius’s The Three Kings at the start, music by Byrd, Howells and Lassus, traditional chant, newer music by Judith Bingham and Joanna Marsh, sung with enviable precision and radiance’ (BBC Record Review)

‘In terms of gleaming vocal purity, The Gesualdo Six, directed by Owain Park, are hard to beat. Their Morning star takes its title from Arvo Pärt but combines chant and early works (by Lassus, Byrd, Clemens non Papa) with new works by Joanna Marsh, Judith Bingham and Adrian Peacock. Park’s own O send out thy light is lyrical and radiant. Not so new but still beautiful, Herbert Howells’s Here is the little door stands out. The dominant mood is quietude, contemplation’ (The Guardian)

‘Now one of the outstanding men’s a cappella groups in England. Their blend and technical polish are second to none, but this is never at the expense of a warmly expressive delivery that never goes to subjective excess’ (American Record Guide)

‘Many ensembles record discs of Christmas music but Owain Park and his colleagues have done something slightly different: they have put together a musical sequence which focuses on the season of the Epiphany … throughout the programme, the singing of The Gesualdo Six (augmented in five items by guest countertenor Will Prior) is immaculate. I enjoyed the purity and intelligence of their performances very much indeed. They have been recorded expertly by engineer David Hinitt and producer Adrian Peacock. The recording balances the group in an ideal fashion and places them beautifully in the acoustic of Trinity College Chapel, which is an ideal venue. Owain Park’s notes are succinct and informative. This is a notable musical celebration of the Feast of the Epiphany’ (MusicWeb International)
Brahms considered Johannes Eccard to be one of the most important sixteenth-century Lutheran composers, ranking him alongside Schütz and Praetorius. Eccard’s setting Maria wallt zum Heiligtum (‘Mary made a pilgrimage to the temple’)—the text after a poem by Peter von Hagen, itself a paraphrase of the Song of Simeon—depicts Christ’s presentation in the temple (Candlemas). The music is written in a ‘chorale-motet’ style—similar to a hymn tune, but with each part having its own melodic and rhythmic logic. A particularly special moment is when the full six-part texture thins to just four voices, highlighting Simeon’s direct address to Jesus: ‘Nun fahr’ ich hin mit Freud’ (‘Now I depart with gladness’). This then unfurls into a moment of conversational polyphony, as ‘du Trost von Israel’ (‘you comfort of Israel’) is passed around the voices.

from notes by Owain Park © 2023

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