Such is the musical mythology that has grown up around Carlo Gesualdo that it’s impossible to discuss his music without mentioning that he was also a double murderer with a penchant for flagellation. But what’s more interesting is the effect that this lurid biography has had on contemporary reactions to the composer’s music. It’s easy to draw a connection between bloody deeds, overwhelming guilt and the twisted, tortured harmonies of certain works. The result is a recording catalogue disproportionately dominated by the madrigals and Tenebrae Responsories, all but ignoring the two volumes of motets, whose more conservative style doesn’t fit with the story.

The Marian Consort’s latest release goes some way to redressing this balance, putting the focus on Gesualdo’s first volume of motets. Scored for five voices, these are even less familiar than the six-voice second volume, and have received only two notable recordings in recent years (in 1993 by the Oxford Camerata and in 2014 by the all-male ensemble Odhecaton). The works of the liber primus owe as much to the prima pratica tradition of Palestrina as they do to more programmatic, madrigalian writing. And it’s precisely this restraint, the careful deployment of expressive colouring and word-painting that gives them their power – each gesture more telling for its comparative rarity.

These are impeccable performances, easily the finest on record, the single voices of Rory McCleery’s ensemble delivering a vertical textural clarity lacking in both of the earlier discs without sacrificing horizontal blend and balance. The generous acoustic of Merton Chapel adds warmth and bloom without letting things get too blowsy. Musically it’s no surprise that Gesualdo is at his best in penitential works – ‘Hei mihi’, ‘Laboravi in gemitu’, ‘O vos omnes’ – but more surprising is
the delicacy and the unexpected (and emotionally devastating) moments of chiaroscuro optimism that colour even the darkest texts. It’s the major-key suggestions of ‘Peccantem me quotidie’ that slay, not the stabbing suspensions.