Tenebrae factae sunt, responsory for Good Friday for 6 voices, W. 7/51 Date: 1611 Composer: Carlo Gesualdo Period: Renaissance (1450-1599) Review The texts of the Tenebrae Responses for Holy Week are unquestionably some of the most affecting in the entire Catholic liturgy. Despite this, when Gesualdo came to compose his highly expressive works on the texts, there was literally no precedent. As if in timidity before words of such vast religious import, being the Passion, the few composers previous to him who composed Responsorial cycles used music that was rather simple and emotionally toned-down, solemn and grave, often barely even polyphonic. In working in this mode, Gesualdo was also dealing with formal constraints of a kind he had never dealt with before. Virtually all of his other music is through-composed, and gossamer to say the least, while Responsories have to follow an aBaC sectional pattern. Yet he seems to have found in the texts points of identification with his own anguish, and in doing so easily overcame the formal obstacle. Such identification with the suffering of Jesus was perfectly in line with Jesuit teachings to artists, and in those terms entirely appropriate. Tenebrae factae sunt, the fifth of the nine-part Responsory cycle, in line with the text which begins "Darkness descended..." is one of its bitterest contributions. From a somber chordal opening, the piece unfolds into a network of gorgeous, anguished dissonances sharing space with relatively normal counterpoint. Its as if two conflicting musics were sounding concurrently. What this ensures in expressive terms is that the presence of the most lyrical phraseology is always felt, no matter how hard the dissonances get. Gesualdo's application of his identification with Christ, however, stretched far beyond his music. He in fact kept as many as 13 hired servants who's sole task was to beat and or flog him everyday, part of an ongoing ritual of purgation for his guilt over earlier crimes. Like a van Gogh of music, Gesualdo paid for every brilliant, unforgettable note with miles of mental anguish of a kind few artists ever walk. ~ Donato Mancini, Rovi Read more: www.answers.com/topic/tenebrae-factae…