Join us for an extraordinary evening of music and conversation in the magnificent setting of the Chapel of St Peter & St Paul. In celebration of the 200th anniversary of Anton Bruckner’s birth and the 60th year of the Monteverdi Choir, this event offers a rare opportunity to explore the deep connections between two visionary composers, Bruckner and Carlo Gesualdo, separated by 250 years.  

Before the concert begins, esteemed music broadcaster, curator, and writer Sara Mohr-Pietsch will engage in an insightful conversation with the concert’s conductor, Jonathan Sells. Together, they will delve into two unlikely bedfellows, musical mavericks 250 years apart.  

About the evening

 To hear his Bruckner’s choral music with fresh ears, the Monteverdi Choir have placed his celebrated a cappella motets together with unlikely bedfellows, above all the sacred motets of Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613).  Richard Wagner was one of Bruckner’s musical heroes, and in his motets, Bruckner manages to distil a hyper-romantic and highly expressive idiom into a compact form which otherwise eluded both of them.  

 250 years earlier, Gesualdo was experimenting with ear- and mind-bending chromatic expressionism and enharmonic shifts in a remarkably similar way. Both Bruckner and Gesualdo were outsiders, were strongly led by their Catholic faith, and showed signs of mental instability. The tormented passion of their music seems to reach out across the centuries.  

Programme  

First Half: 35’, Interval: 20’, Second half: 45’ 

Palestrina arr. Wagner Stabat mater 
Bruckner Postlude/Nachspiel in D minor WAB 126 
Gesualdo Illumina faciem tuam 
Bruckner Christus factus WAB 11 
Gesualdo Ave dulcissima Maria 
Bruckner Ave Maria WAB 6  

Interval  

Bruckner Prelude & Fugue in C minor WAB 131 
Lotti Crucifixus a 8 
GesualdoTribulationem et dolorem 
Bruckner Os justi WAB 30 
Gesualdo O vos omnes 
Bruckner Salvum fac populum tuum WAB 40 
Gesualdo Peccantem me quotidie 
Bruckner Vexilla regis WAB 51 
Gesualdo Laboravi in gemitu meo 
Bruckner Locus iste WAB 23 

Monteverdi Choir 
Jonathan Sells Conductor 
James Johnstone Organ  

About Monteverdi Choir  

★★★★★ – “Truly one of the finest choirs of their time.” – Bachtrack

“If the Monteverdi Choir isn’t singing when I get to the gates of Heaven, I want my money back.”  – The Telegraph

The Monteverdi Choir celebrates its 60th anniversary in 2024. Over the course of its life, it has established itself as one of the greatest choirs in the world. Through a combination of consummate technique, historically inspired performance practice and a strong appreciation for visual impact, the Choir constantly strives to bring fresh perspectives, immediacy, and drama to its performances. The Choir and English Baroque Soloists were honoured to perform at the Coronation of their Patron, HM The King, in May 2023.

Founded in 1964, the Monteverdi Choir has released over 150 recordings and won numerous prizes, including the ‘Best Choir’ prize at the Oper! Awards in January 2024.

 About Jonathan Sells, Conductor & Chorusmaster

“The Monteverdi Choir, led by Jonathan Sells…proves its extraordinary class.” – Leipziger Volkszeitung  

Jonathan Sells is an internationally renowned artistic director, conductor, and singer. A member of the Monteverdi Choir from 2009-2018, Sells made his conducting debut with the Choir and English Baroque Soloists in June 2024. The performances – Bach motets at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London and Bachfest Leipzig – were met with a rapturous reception from audiences and critics.   

Sells has a burning curiosity for neglected geniuses of the 17th and 18th centuries such as Johann Kuhnau, George Jeffreys, and Barbara Strozzi, as well as later repertoire: he has conducted Beethoven, Dvorak, Prokofiev, Nielsen, and Varèse, and has worked with choirs from the UK to the Middle East.   

About Bruckner and Gesualdo  

Bruckner  

Anton Bruckner (1824–1896) was an Austrian composer and organist. A major symphonic composer of the Romantic era, he was deeply influenced by his Catholic faith; he wrote a least 7 masses and almost 40 motets. He was devoted to the music of Richard Wagner, and in his motets, we hear a powerful distillation of Wagner’s heightened romantic expression and harmony into small-scale sacred forms. Although he was characterised as a simple provincial figure, and his music split opinion in his own time, he is now regarded as one of the most significant figures in the late 19th-century Austrian compositional canon.   

Gesualdo  

Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613) was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance known for his sacred music and madrigals. His highly expressive music used harmonic language that was radical for its time. Born into an aristocratic family, Gesualdo was Prince of Venosa and had a dramatic personal life: in 1590 he murdered his wife and her lover after catching them in flagrante. Arguably he remained tortured by guilt for the rest of his life, and this may have been the root of his experimental and wildly chromatic compositional style.