Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa was an Italian nobleman and composer. Though both the Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza, he is better known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century. He is also known for killing his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto.
Morten Johannes Lauridsen is an American composer and teacher. A National Medal of Arts recipient (2007), he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001, and is professor emeritus of composition at the USC Thornton School of Music, where he taught for fifty-two years until his retirement in 2019.
Tenebrae is a religious service of Western Christianity held during the three days preceding Easter Day, and characterized by gradual extinguishing of candles, and by a "strepitus" or "loud noise" taking place in total darkness near the end of the service.
Hilliard Ensemble was a British male vocal quartet originally devoted to the performance of early music. The group was named after the Elizabethan miniaturist painter Nicholas Hilliard. Founded in 1974, the group disbanded in 2014.
Jeremy Summerly is a British conductor. He was educated at Lichfield Cathedral School, Winchester College, and New College, Oxford. While at Oxford he conducted the New College Chamber Orchestra and the Oxford Chamber Choir. After graduating with a first-class honours degree in music in 1982, he started work as a studio manager for BBC Radio, while pursuing postgraduate research in historical musicology at King's College London. Since 1991 he has been a presenter and reviewer for BBC's Radios 3 and 4, in particular for Radio 4's Front Row, and Radio 3's Record Review.
Voces8, styled VOCES8, is an a cappella octet from England. They have appeared internationally and made recordings of classical music, jazz, pop, and their own arrangements. Recent recordings are for Decca Classics and under their own label, Voces8 Records. Educational efforts are run by the Voces8 Foundation.
Pro Cantione Antiqua of London (PCA) is a British choral group which was founded in 1968 by tenor James Griffett, counter-tenor Paul Esswood, and conductor and producer Mark Brown. Their first concert was at St Bartholomew's, Smithfield with Brian Brockless conducting but, from an early stage, they were closely associated with conductor and musicologist Bruno Turner. Arguably, they were the leading British performers of a cappella music, especially early music, prior to the founding of the Tallis Scholars.
The Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge is a mixed choir whose primary function is to sing choral services in the Tudor chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. In January 2011, Gramophone named the choir the fifth best choir in the world.
Stile Antico is a British vocal ensemble, specialising in polyphonic early music composed prior to the eighteenth century. Like groups such as the Tallis Scholars or The Sixteen, it has roots in the choral tradition of the Oxford and Cambridge colleges, but, unusually for groups tackling complex polyphony, Stile Antico has no conductor. The singers rehearse and perform as chamber musicians, an approach which has been praised by critics.
David Skinner is a British musicologist and choir director. He works at the University of Cambridge, where he is the director of music at Sidney Sussex College and is an affiliated lecturer, teaching historical and practical topics from the medieval and Renaissance periods. He is the founder of the vocal consort Alamire, and the cofounder of the vocal ensembles Magdala and The Cardinall's Musick. He has produced more than 25 recordings. He has been associated with a number of award-winning projects.
The ensemble A Sei Voci was a French vocal group founded in 1977 and which ceased in 2011.
The Tenebrae Responsories by Tomás Luis de Victoria are a set of eighteen motets for four voices a cappella. The late Renaissance Spanish composer set the Responsories for Holy Week known as Tenebrae responsories. They are liturgical texts prescribed for use in the Catholic observances during the Triduum of the Holy Week, in the Matins of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. The compositions were published in Rome in 1585.
The discography of Westminster Cathedral Choir includes many award-winning recordings, among them the 1998 Gramophone Award Record of the Year for Frank Martin's Mass for Double Choir and Ildebrando Pizzetti's Requiem.
Quatre motets pour un temps de pénitence, FP 97, are four sacred motets composed by Francis Poulenc in 1938–39. He wrote them on Latin texts for penitence, scored for four unaccompanied voices.
Tenebrae responsories are the responsories sung following the lessons of Tenebrae, the Matins services of the last three days of Holy Week: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Polyphonic settings to replace plainchant have been published under a various titles, including Responsoria pro hebdomada sancta.
The righteous perishes are the words with which the 57th chapter of the Book of Isaiah start. In Christianity, Isaiah 57:1–2 is associated with the death of Christ, leading to liturgical use of the text at Tenebrae: the 24th responsory for Holy Week, "Ecce quomodo moritur justus", is based on this text. More generally, the text is associated with the death of loved ones and is used at burials. As such, and in other versions and translations, the Bible excerpt has been set to music.
The Oxford Camerata is an English chamber choir based in Oxford, England. The Camerata was founded in 1984 by conductor Jeremy Summerly and singers David Hurley and Henrietta Cowling and gave its first performance on 22 May of that year. The ensemble consists of a core membership of fifteen singers, though personnel size varies according to the demands of the repertoire. While the Camerata is known for performing primarily unaccompanied repertoire, it has also performed accompanied repertoire, employing the services of the Oxford Camerata Instrumental Ensemble and the Oxford Camerata Baroque Orchestra.
Songs of Farewell is a set of six choral motets by the British composer Hubert Parry. The pieces were composed between 1916 and 1918 and were among his last compositions before his death.
O magnum mysterium is a motet for choir a cappella by Morten Lauridsen. He set the text of "O magnum mysterium", a Gregorian chant for Christmas, in 1994. The composition, performed and recorded often, made Lauridsen famous. It was described as expressive ethereal sounds in imperturbable calmness.
"Verbum caro factum est" is a sacred motet for six voices by Hans Leo Hassler. The Latin text is taken from the prologue to the Gospel of John. The voices are divided into two groups of three that sing antiphonally in the Venetian polychoral style. The motet is often performed for Christmas, in services, concerts and on recordings. Instruments can play along with the voices, and it has been arranged for instruments alone.
