- Date: 1611
- Composer: Carlo Gesualdo
- Period: Renaissance (1450-1599)
Review
Music and architecture, especially in conjunction with each other, were understood by the forces of the counter-reformation as the church's most powerful tools of propaganda. They make the most obvious and irresistible appeal to human emotions. One of the main objectives for the churchly arts established was that the act of worship must be made to glow with an emotional zeal that will enrapture the heart. In part this made room for the allowance of intense chromaticism within church music, because as such it did not interfere with or contradict the other dictum that text must be set so that it remains clear and comprehensible. A composer before Gesualdo named Vincentino in fact had specifically been solicited by the church to write a mass "in the chromatic manner," although the work does not survive.Gesualdo's highly chromatic Tenebrae Responsoria for Holy Week therefore had a context in musical practice and thinking at the time. He was far less artistically isolated than is often assumed. Indeed he was a passionate, violent, eccentric man, and those personal qualities do come forth in the music. But the intensity of emotion in his sacred music and its chromaticism, especially the Responses, was quite in line with counter-reformationist passions and ideas. St. Ignatius, if he listened, certainly would've understood what Gesualdo was getting at. As per Jesuit injunctions to artists, he fully identified his own sorrows with those of Christ so as to truly know their horrors. In the process he produced a terrifying music of incomparable emotional power. ~ Donato Mancini, All Music Guide
Albums with Complete Performances of the Work
| Title | Date |
| Gesualdo: Tenebrae Responses for Good Friday | 2000 |
