English Motets

England’s choral golden age rose out of the religious upheavals of the 15th and 16th centuries. Composers such as William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, and Orlando Gibbons weaved polyphonic musical textures of indescribable beauty. The balanced, blended voices of The Gesualdo Six explore the breadth and depth of this magnificent Tudor heritage in a series of gems that includes Dunstaple’s Veni Sancte Spiritus / Veni creator Spiritus, still clinging to its medieval roots, Morley’s madrigalian Haec dies, and Elizabethan composer Tomkins’ When David Heard—a breathtakingly simple portrait of anguish and despair.