Gesualdo: Cruel Ecstasy – performed by the Exaudi Vocal Ensemble
The Exaudi Vocal Ensemble took to an otherwise bare stage to perform a selection of Carlo Gesualdo Madrigals that were dripping with melancholy and emotion. Using only the considerable power of their voices, this unamplified concert was the music the acoustics of St Andrews Hall were built for.
NNF
Four hundred years after Carlo Gesualdo wrote his series of Madrigals, dripping with melancholy and emotion, the Exaudi Vocal Ensemble took to an otherwise bare stage to perform a selection from Books V and VI. Using only the considerable power of their voices, this unamplified concert was the evening the acoustics of the venue were built for. Gesualdo is best known for using a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century, for killing his wife and her lover, and getting away with it. He probably abused his second wife, certainly beat himself up. He was depressive, reclusive and bi-polar. Throw all that into the mix, and it’s not surprising his music is a heady brew, but cast it all to one side – as I’m inclined to do – and the transcendent (I’ve used that word a lot this festival) wonder of his compositions shines through.
The company performed nine of his works in total, with the six performers taking it in turns to sit on the subs bench, while the other five sang. Served up in batches of three, the music was interpreted for us by James Week, the director of the company. He was a personable enough fellow, but – goodness me – he likes a natter. Regrettably, his lengthy expositions sometimes broke the spell of a concert that would have otherwise moved beyond words and literal meaning – surely the very purpose of music. And I’m not sure I accept his central thesis, that Gesualdo’s music was definitively informed by his state of mind and life choices. Be they Wagner, Shakespeare or Van Gogh, there is a modern tendency to read biographical detail into the works of great artists, which rather diminishes their capacity to imagine and create. Lonnie Donnegan’s father was not, as far as I know, a dustman. I heard nothing but extraordinary beauty and grace as these brilliantly talented performers lent their layered voices to a whole that was greater than a sum of its parts. I will grant you that there is an adolescent indulgence and self-obsession to the text, as revealed in the concert notes translation, but during the performance this was thankfully unclear. I think that not knowing what they were singing about brought an objective clarity to a judgement of the music’s quality; something I would argue is impeded by being better informed.
Exaudi has a laudable commitment to promoting new music, with special regard to (in the words of James Week) maximal complexity, microtonality and experimental aesthetics. I confess to not knowing what he means by that, but the spirit is clear enough. The group is all about pushing boundaries and promoting new compositions. To that extent, it is tempting to conclude that Gesualdo was the bait to catch us with and thereby introduce us to the works by Sylvia Lim and Joanna Ward, sandwiched between the more established material. The latter, Living on Ice Cream and Chocolate Kisses enjoyed its first public outing, having been commissioned for the festival, and was the most accessible of the two. A response to Gesualdo’s masculine take on love, this was a clever and at times whimsical repost to his maudlin introspection, packing with a pleasing Reichian cycle that didn’t outstay its welcome. Encouraged by Week to do so, Ward briefly left her seat in the audience for a self-conscious nod of the head in appreciation of well-deserved applause. He really should have insisted she came up on stage.
Less successful, at least to my ears, was Lim’s burst flood wound, a piece that extracted isolated words from the Gesualdo text and recycled them, alongside breaths and gasps and rumbles and sighs. I thought it an interminable racket, notwithstanding the considerable skill displayed in projecting these noises. At its conclusion, I turned to my companion in expectation of a shared distain, only to find him clapping louder than either before or after. He thought it a work of audacious creatively expertly executed, making me feel like a curmudgeonly old traditionalist. What we agreed on, however, was that neither of us would have been exposed to the work but for the opportunity offered up by the festival. Whatever one’s views, this was the festival experience at its best – educating as well as entertaining. Long may it pursue those twin aims.
