This must rank among the most important recent additions to the madrigal discography, and a landmark in that of Gesualdo. The composer's reputation rests largely on his last three books of madrigals, which have been admirably served; but the first three had so far been less lucky. Their musical language is less strikingly 'original' than in the later books, and for that reason the interpretative challenge they represent is quite different.
This anthology succeeds brilliantly in dispelling the notion that Gesualdo was 'still finding his voice' in his earlier work. One's almost tempted to turn the traditional view on its head and regard the later music as a self-indulgently hyperbolised departure from the style of, say, the Third Book. Not quite believable, perhaps needless to say, but Harry van der Kamp and his singers have achieved something rather special here.
The Gesualdo Consort is a multinational ensemble, and though it includes no Italians, for sonic seduction they certainly rival their Italian counterparts while never losing sight of the music's rhetorical sense. The pleasure here consists in following Gesualdo's gradual widening of his technical and expressive resources: by the Third Book, the pieces are longer, the argument correspondingly more ambitious, the chromaticism more assertive. His 'Ancidetemi pur' (a rereading of a set text in one of Arcadelt's most famous madrigals), for example, is very fine indeed. The singing is superb, with few slips to speak of, and none that detracts from the singers' expressive purpose. The continuo is unobtrusive but tastefully and sensitively deployed, and is given its head with a few keyboard intabulations that provide a welcome contrast.

This must rank among the most important recent additions to the madrigal discography, and a landmark in that of Gesualdo. …Harry van der Kamp and his singers have achieved something rather special. The singing is superb, with few slips to speak of, and none that detracts from the singers' expressive purpose.