Choral directors who tackle Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responses do so at their own peril. Andrew Megill went out on that limb to introduce himself to the Carmel Bach Festival, and, no doubt, to put his colleagues everywhere on notice that he’s prepared to play for high stakes.
In a program titled "From Darkness to Light," Megill, the festival’s new associate conductor, directed his youthful 24-voice Festival Chorale three times at Carmel Mission, and once in memory of the late Sandor Salgo at Stanford Memorial Church, between mid-July and August 1.
Gesualdo’s Tenebrae loom as among the most daunting works ever penned, for singers and choral directors alike, to say nothing of audiences unfamiliar with them. At Carmel Mission last Wednesday, more than a few of the latter became increasingly aware of how hard those wooden pews can be. Yet the performance itself, of the nine Tenebrae Responsories — dark reflections on the suffering and death of Jesus — for Holy Saturday, deserved accolades, even though the audience had little opportunity to show them. (The Gesualdo was sandwiched between penitential motets by Poulenc and Richard Rodney Bennett’s The Seasons of His Mercies, in a solemn candlelit program that specifically prohibited applause.)
The biggest obstacle to “getting” the Tenebrae madrigals lies in understanding the texts, because like most 15th - and 16th-century vocal music, the music emanates from the words. The verses in this case were printed with translations, and recited in English from the pulpit before each was sung. However, the darkened, echoing room conspired against any clear connection between the Latin words and the circuitous, often tortured musical lines.
For most composers, this would have already been enough complexity. But not for Gesualdo. The texts are further illuminated with abrupt vacillations between circumspect meditation and dramatic flourish, and with changing tempos and dynamics all along the way. Although the composer makes use of his contemporaries' practices, he adds further complication as he pits harmonic episodes against contrapuntal ones, and tone painting for affect — or feeling — against fleeting but often shocking effect. (His sometimes-grinding dissonances account rather disproportionately for the notoriety of this music today, and some who conduct it exaggerate the effects into parody.) In a few spots, Megill drew quartets from his chorus who carried their parts assuredly and in fine voice and balance.
Inevitably, some listeners find themselves in a place not unlike some of Gesualdo’s courtly audiences, for whom cultivating a taste for such stylized settings took more time and effort than they deemed they were worth. But for those who make the effort, rewards are as abundant as they are concentrated. These kernels come with no chaff.