Gesualdo

his absorbing project finds Australian composer Brett Dean and Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür drawing inspiration in very different ways from the music, life and times of Carlo Gesualdo, and juxtaposes these reflections with Gesualdo’s own music. Dean’s Carlo (composed 1997) begins with pure Gesualdo from the 6th Book of Madrigals, then gradually enters a very 20th century sound-world. Through use of both sampled and real- time voices as well as increasingly intense strings Dean paints an hallucinatory picture of the Prince of Verona’s state of mind as he is driven toward his violent crimes of passion. Erkki Sven Tüür’s L’Ombra di Gesualdo references the Gesualdo motet O crux benedicta from the Cantiones sacrae, and Gesualdo’s piece is also heard in an arrangement for strings by Tüür. The programme is completed by Tüür’s Psalmody.