The Hilliard Ensemble - Carlo Gesualdo: Tenebrae (1991)

Carlo Gesualdo's name will always conjure up a special image: When he discovered that his wife had been unfaithful, he had her and her lover murdered and left on his palace steps, impaled on the same sword. Ghastly, but gripping--and, oddly enough, his harmonies, dissonances, upsetting chromatic passages, and general complexity can also be seen as "ghastly but gripping." Gesualdo was wealthy enough that he never had to depend on a patron; he could therefore write whatever he pleased, in whatever, far-out (to this day), experimental style he chose. His Tenebrae Responsoria are particularly thorny--they're a part of the religious service in which the church's candles are extinguished one at a time until the congregation is sitting in darkness--and Gesualdo's music is incredibly deep and troubling. And, I might add, magnificent. The Hilliards perform them ideally, with great technical accuracy, a sense of the weightiness of the text and music, and simply beautiful sound. This is an example of what makes the Hilliards so special. -- Robert Levine