Interview, Christmas with the Gesualdo Six

Carving out a distinctive niche for themselves within the world of choral consort-style groups are British sextet The Gesualdo Six, founded and led by Owain Park (himself combining careers as singer, conductor and composer). After a highly successful début of English Tudor motets in summer 2018, they've now released a collection of Christmas works - dating not just from that period, but stretching from before the Reformation up to the present day.

I spoke to Owain about this new album, and about his future plans with the ensemble.

The music on this album spans many centuries, from the thirteenth century to our own era. How do you think musical and artistic tastes have shifted over that time, in terms of which aspects of the Christmas story are emphasised?

The season of Advent, with its mystery and wonder, has proved particularly fertile ground for composers over the centuries. Some of the most beautiful and engaging chant melodies appear at this time of year, all with an air of anticipation and promise. We all enjoy singing this festive music, and know that we are lucky to be custodians of such a rich vein of repertoire. Much of this music was made available through the ubiquitous Carols for Choirs series, which not only set the standard for new works and arrangements, but inspired generations to sing and ensured a love of this repertoire.

The one time of year that I think loses out is Epiphany, as choirs are often on holiday after an extremely busy festive period. In early 2018, we toured with a programme of music for Epiphany centred around the plainchant propers, and in 2020 will be performing ‘Morning Star’ in Boxgrove, Salisbury and Dursley between 3-5 January, singing music from Clemens non Papa to Cecilia McDowall. It is rewarding to begin the year exploring music that we wouldn’t normally encounter, and offering audiences their first concert of the New Year!

There is such a vast repertoire of choral music for the festive season that it must have been a struggle to limit yourselves to just one disc’s worth of material… How did you choose the music for this album?

One of our first concerts together was at Christmas, and everyone in the group brought suggestions of music that they would be excited to perform. This developed into a programme and later formed the template for this festive recording. Our first album, English Motets, is an early-music CD, though anyone that has been to our performances will know that we like to intersperse old with new. To create a more concert-like experience on disc, we feature works by Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Eleanor Daley and Jonathan Harvey alongside works from the Renaissance by Tallis and Praetorius. I hope that we have managed to capture something of the festive spirit, with moments of stillness set against joyful exuberance.

One of the works on the album is a composition of your own; did you have the specific individuals of the Gesualdo Six in mind when writing this piece?

I wrote ‘On the Infancy of our Saviour’ for Opus Anglicanum, an ensemble that has been commissioning works over the last twenty years from composers including Judith Bingham and Sally Beamish. The piece sets a beautiful poem by Francis Quarles, which comes from a collection called ‘Divine Fancies’. There is already an intimacy when writing for single voices, but I wanted the text to be heard clearly, and so mostly the words are present in a single voice or sung together by everyone. The opening chord reappears throughout the work, at moments when I wanted to articulate particular moments in the text such as ‘blest’ and ‘smiling’. Despite running the group for nearly six years I haven’t yet written anything bespoke for the ensemble, so that’s my next plan!

A Christmas album is one thing; but do you see yourselves following in the steps of some other ensembles, who have recorded a whole series of albums for the various festivals of the liturgical year?

Our next release is ‘Fading’, a CD of music inspired by the ancient service of compline, which will be released around Lent next year. After that, we have plans to record the Tenebrae Responsories by Gesualdo, which are rooted in the Holy Week liturgy, and a CD of Italian Madrigals, which very much are not! Liturgical festivals do provide a rich seam of music that we will continue to explore, but we will also be searching for other interesting connections and juxtapositions for our future projects. The launch concert for ‘Fading’ will take place in London on Saturday 14 March 2020 at St Bartholomew the Great.