The metaphor of the hope of light returning in the winter months resonates strongly in the Christian tradition, from Advent candles and the ‘O Oriens’ (‘O Morning Star’) antiphon for 21 December , to ...

Sex and death at the National Centre for Early Music in York The Gesualdo Six (Photo: Paul Marc Mitchell) The combination of the six singers of The Gesualdo Six with director Bill Barclay’s take on ...

It works, not least because – as Barclay points out in his eloquent programme note – Gesualdo’s delusional identification with Christ is reflected so strongly in his music, most notably his Tenebrae ...

The group have a remarkable blend, beautifully showcasing the music’s interweaving polyphony under the direction of Owain Park. William Byrd’s "Ave Verum Corpus" was given a measured reverence, while ...

A jealous composer who happens to be a prince catches his wife and her lover in flagrante and butchers them to death, mutilating the corpses. The lover, moreover, was a cross-dresser who had been ...

A loud, long and purely sung major chord cut through the resonant space of St. James by-the-Sea, a sonic laser beam that raised goose bumps. This surprising, beautiful sonority was sung by four ...

Revel in the polyphonic glories of William Byrd, perhaps the greatest and certainly most influential of all the English Renaissance composers, in a setting that surely would have felt home to him, as ...

Highly polished male vocal ensembles have proliferated in the wake of the popular King's Singers, founded - gasp - 53 years ago. English cathedral and collegiate chapel choirs have been natural "farm ...