Music for Holy Week

The Gesualdo Six’s Christmas concert in 2022 was a marvellous Muziekgebouw debut. Which is why the singers were invited back to bring their beautiful voices to this year’s Easter celebrations. ‘The Gesualdo Six is an impressive boy band of six young singers’, wrote SWR Kultur. They alternate three of the greatest composers of the 16th and early 17th centuries with two present-day composers, one of whom is their artistic director, Owain Park.

At the heart of the programme are the Tenebrae responsoria. The Tenebrae (Dark Matins) is a Roman Catholic ritual for the last days of Holy Week: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Numerous composers have set this ritual to music, and today we will hear the works of Gesualdo and Victoria. It is fascinating to experience how composers from different countries, like Italy and Spain, approached the very same texts with such distinct musical interpretations.