Birmingham Bach Choir

Gesualdo's personal life remained as colourful and complex as his music. Having murdered his wife & her lover in 1590, he married Leonora d'Este in 1594, & subsequently took a mistress of his own. In 1603 Leonora accused her husband's mistress of witchcraft and she was convicted and imprisoned.

Gesualdo's uncle, Carlo Borromeo, had called for the enrichment of sacred music through chromaticism, & Gesualdo also owned an 'arcicembalo', a keyboard instrument invented by Nicola Vicentino c.1555, with a second manual designed to provide extra pitches to create a system of 31 equal temperament.

🔸BACH @ BART’S 🔸
starts this Sunday. Every Sunday in Lent at 6:30pm in St Bartholomew’s Church Penn, Wolverhampton.
Organ works by J.S. Bach including all six Trio Sonatas. Admission free with a retiring collection towards the St Bart’s Choir Summer Tour.
Details ⬇️

Good call!

Packing your bag for the weekly choir rehearsal: music, pencil, glasses, apple, mug for interval coffee. What do you consider essential that I've left out?!

One of our first basses, James Langstaff, was on BBC West Midlands a few weeks ago speaking to Donna Alos about our upcoming concert of sacred music by Byrd, Gesualdo, Lotti, Tallis, Victoria & others - have a listen, it's 5 minutes well spent! on.soundcloud.com/MAtnfZO1jj3w...

Later in his life Gesualdo turned from writing secular madrigals to penning sacred works. Deeply melancholic, he venerated his sainted uncle Carlo Borromeo, and an anonymous observer recorded that 'he is opposed to innovation, attends to money-making and does not delight in anything but music'.

This term one of the works we're performing is Gesualdo's spellbinding 'Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday'. Gesualdo is equally notorious for the pervasive chromaticism of his music and his murder of his wife and her lover, caught ‘in flagrante delicto di fragrante peccato’, in October 1590.

Having already written biographies of Herbert Howells, Sir George Dyson, and Sir Arthur Bliss, Paul's latest book, on choral conducting, is published later this month: www.crowood.com/book/choral-...

Our Music Director since 1992 has been the inspirational Paul Spicer, who next month will be awarded the RCO medal for distinguished achievement in choral conducting and pedagogy, and scholarship.

Richard Butt was conductor of the then-named Birmingham Bach Society from 1966-1992, during which time the choir gave a performance of Bach's Mass in B Minor with the Leipzig Radio Orchestra (1 June 1989) at J.S. Bach's own church of St Thomas, Leipzig.

We might be new to Bluesky, but we were founded over 100 years ago by Bernard Jackson in October 1919. This picture is us rehearsing a mere 58 years ago in St Paul's Church, Birmingham, with Richard Butt.

We're excited to be making our debut Bluesky post, and it's a good one! Join us for a stunning programme of sacred choral music on 14 March at St Chad's Cathedral, Birmingham...