The radical spirit of 16th-century composer Carlo Gesualdo is the point of departure for this programme of ancient and modern music with Britten Sinfonia and The Marian Consort.
In the madrigals and motets of the notorious aristocrat, murderer and composer, we hear extremes of expression and harmonies that even today sound fresh and surprising. Australian composer Brett Dean’s gripping Carlo for string orchestra and electronics paints a dark psychological portrait of the composer, and in a pre-concert screening we explore the composer’s life through the idiosyncratic documentary Death for five voices by cult filmmaker Werner Hertzog. It’s also fascinating to hear the motets of Gesualdo’s lesser-known African-Portuguese predecessor, Vicente Lusitano, whose music is even further away from the classic Renaissance sound.
The first half delves back further still to 15th-century Flemish and English music and culminates in the newest piece in the programme, a European premiere by another Australian composer, Lisa Illean, whose haunting new work offers fleeting glimpses of transparent tapestries of sound.