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Playlist: The Gesualdo Six

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Playlist: The Gesualdo Six
The Gesualdo Six (photo by Andrew Wilkinson)

BY CONTINUO CONNECT | FIRST PUBLISHED 13 DEC 2025

This playlist accompanies our recent feature with the founder and musical director of The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park, in which he discusses the group's origins, latest ventures and future plans with Continuo Connect’s Ashutosh Khandekar.

The selection offers an overview of The Gesualdo Six’s extensive discography and repertoire. Early chant- and mode-based works by Hildegard von Bingen and anonymous medieval composers are complemented by examples of Renaissance polyphony by Josquin, Ockeghem, Byrd and Tallis while Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories introduce sharp harmonic contrasts and expressive dissonances.

Interspersed with these are recent commissions for the ensemble by Sarah Rimkus, Deborah Pritchard and Joanna Ward, as well as works composed by Park himself. Seasonal works from the group’s Christmas album bookend the playlist, an appropriate backdrop as the festive period gathers pace.

Listen on Spotify.

TRACK LIST

1. Anon. (arr. Lawson) ‘Veni Emmanuel’
2. Michael Praetorius
‘Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen’
3. Anon.
Coventry Carol
4. Hildegard von Bingen
‘O gloriosissimi lux’
5. Praetorius
‘Nun kom, der Heiden Heiland’
6. Owain Park
On the Infancy of our Saviour
7. Pierre de la Rue
‘Secretz regretz’
8. William Cornysh I
‘Ave Maria, mater Dei’
9. Anon.
‘Ecce advenit’
10. Johannes Ockeghem
Intemerata Dei mater: ‘Intemerata Dei mater’
11. William Byrd
Vigilate a 5, T27 (Cantiones sacrae, 1589)
12. Sarah Rimkus
‘My heart is like a singing bird’
13. Hildegard von Bingen
‘O Ecclesia’
14. Henry Purcell
‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts’, Z58c
15. Byrd
‘Ave verum corpus’, T92
16 & 17. Byrd
Ave Maria a 5, T69: ‘Ave Maria, gratia plena’; ‘Alleluia’
18. Deborah Pritchard
The Light Thereof (with Matilda Lloyd, trumpet)
19. Thomas Morley
‘Haec Dies’
20. Thomas Tallis
‘If Ye Love Me’
21 & 22. Carlo Gesualdo
Tenebrae Responsories for Maundy Thursday: In Monte Oliveti: ‘In Monte Oliveti’; ‘Presa’
23. Joanna Ward
‘Christus factus est’
24. Cristóbal de Morales
Missa pro defunctis a 5 ‘Requiem’: ‘Communio’
25, 26 & 27. Josquin des Prez
Nymphes des bois | Requiem aeternam NJE 29.18 (‘La Déploration de Johannes Ockeghem’): ‘Nymphes des bois’; ‘Acoutrez vous’; ‘Resquiescat in pace’
28. Owain Park
Sommernacht
29. Tallis
‘O nata lux de lumine’
30. Jacobus Clemens non Papa
Magi veniunt ab oriente: ‘Magi veniunt ab oriente’
31. Byrd
Lullaby: ‘My Sweetest Little Baby’, T242
32. Antoine Brumel
‘Sicut lilium inter spinas’
33. Owain Park
Phos hilaron: ‘Phos hilaron’
34. Anon.
‘There Is No Rose’
35. Anon.
(arr. Bach) ‘In dulci jubilo’
36. Anon.
(arr. Kay) ‘Gaudete’

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