Gesualdo: Sacrae Cantiones, Liber Secundus - James Wood, Vocalconsort Berlin (2013)

As we commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of Gesualdo in 2013, one of his last works still remains to be rediscovered: the second book of Sacrae Cantiones, motets for six and seven voices, of which the bassus and sextus parts have, alas, disappeared. Thanks to his unrelenting and methodical research, James Wood has managed to reconstruct the score for the first time as it might have been sung in 1603. This fascinating investigation took three years to complete; here is the result.

"I had little idea at the outset just how difficult the task of reconstruction would be, and indeed there were many moments when I was tempted to concede defeat. However, my determination was fuelled on the one hand by the excitement of bringing these masterful and visionary pieces back to life after four hundred years of oblivion, and on the other by the stimulation which came from discovering so many secrets within a compositional technique of such phenomenal strength and sophistication, and from which I, as a composer even four centuries later, could learn so much. I would like to thank Andrew Parrott for his very great help, advice and constant encouragement throughout my work on this reconstruction."

Composer: Carlo Gesualdo
Conductor: James Wood
Orchestra/Ensemble: Vocalconsort Berlin

Reviews: The quatercentenary of Don Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1611) is the occasion for a major addition to the composer’s discography. Jeremy Summerly’s collection of Cantiones Sacrae, Liber Primus of 1603 ( style="font-style:italic">Fanfare 18:1) was titled “Complete Sacred Music for Five Voices.” Recordings of those 19 motets had appeared only in partial collections, half of them never recorded at all up to that time. Another book of motets for six and seven voices was published in the same year under the same title, as mentioned in the previous review, but it is referred to (here, at least) by a less confusing title, the second book. Since the part-books for Bassus and Sextus have been lost, this collection of 20 motets has not been performable until James Wood began, in 2008, to reconstruct the missing voices. Now we can hear the result. Full value has been assured by filling out the playing time with the Psalm and canticle from the Tenebrae music of 1611 framing the Cantiones. Wood has programmed the Cantiones not in the order of publication but in groups that he describes as prayers for salvation; despair and weeping; peace and hope; praise and thanks.


Wood’s reconstruction of the two missing part-books is described in some detail in the notes printed in the booklet, which can be found in an extended version on the label’s website. He makes it clear that Stravinsky’s reconstruction of three of these motets was not the sort that a musicologist would consider stylistically correct but rather a fusion of styles, Gesualdo’s and Stravinsky’s. Stravinsky completed the seven-voice “Illumina nos” in 1957, the six-voice “Da pacem, Domine” and “Assumpta est Maria” in 1959 (Stravinsky conducted the last one in New York in January 1960). It should be noted also that Stravinsky involved Glenn Watkins, later Gesualdo’s biographer and co-editor of his collected works, in the examination of the part-books, and Watkins found that, while the seven-voice motets lacked two parts, the six-voice motets lacked only one voice. I tried unsuccessfully to obtain some clarification of this. To my ear, Wood has completed the motets and performed them with complete success. Happy anniversary, Don Carlo.