Gesualdo and Lusitano Motets

Britten Sinfonia performs arrangements of Gesualdo’s motets, whose extremes of expression lead to harmonies that even today feel moving and refreshingly new. British early music vocal ensemble The Marian Consort sets the scene with some of Gesualdo's remarkable motets and madrigals, as well as works by Portuguese-African Vicente Lusitano, whose motets published in Rome in 1551 paved the way for Gesualdo’s own audacious experiments with harmonic chromaticism.

In Carlo, composer Brett Dean draws on Gesualdo’s sound-world and dark life story in a powerfully atmospheric work for string orchestra, recorded voices and electronics. Finally, a UK premiere from Lisa Illean which, she says, ‘evokes an intermingling of distant sounds – music heard partially, and far away’.