Video of the Day: The Gesualdo Six performs Mouton's 'Tota pulchra es'
Theo Elwell
Friday, June 21, 2024
Taken from their new album, the ensemble presents a peaceful performance of this French renaissance work
Today's Video of the Day comes from The Gesualdo Six with their stunning performance of Jean Mouton's Tota pulchra es' in St George's Church, Bloomsbury.
Taken from their new album Queen of Hearts, Tota pulchra es was written by Jean Mouton, a french composer famed for his motets who died 501 years ago. A chorister himself, it is believed he studied with Josquin des Prez before becoming a priest. 'Tota pulchra es' translates as 'you are most beautiful.
The new album Queen of Hearts addresses and reflects on queens spiritual (the Virgin Mary) and temporal (Mary Tudor and Anne Boleyn, among others) in a programme of music largely of the sixteenth century, but spiced with two short works from the twenty-first.