Arcadelt: Il bianco e dolce cigno The Gesualdo Six, Owain Park (director) A film by Apple and Biscuit Recordings Filmed at All Hallows, Gospel Oak, London, United Kingdom Read more and order the CD: https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dc.asp?dc=D_CDA68480 *** Il bianco e dolce cigno cantando more, Ed io piangendo guing’ al fin del viver mio. Stran’ e diversa sorte! Ch’ei more sconsolato, Ed io moro beato. Morte che nel morire M’empie de gioia tutto e di desire. Se nel morir altro dolor non sento, Di mille mort’ il di sarei contento. Giovanni Guidiccioni (1500-1541) Translation: The white and sweet swan singing dies, and I lamenting come to the end of my life. Strange and varied fate! That he in death is distraught, and I die blessed. Death that in dying fills me with all joy and desire. If in dying no other pain do I feel, for a thousand deaths a day I would be content. Il bianco e dolce cigno by Jacques Arcadelt is one of the most celebrated madrigals of the Renaissance, epitomizing the elegance and emotional subtlety of Italian secular vocal music in the mid-sixteenth century. The poem evokes the swan’s fabled dying song, intertwining images of love and mortality in language that is at once tender and sensuous. Arcadelt mirrors this poetic ambiguity with music of gentle rise and fall: phrases glide and settle like the bird itself upon the water, while moments of harmonic warmth and suspension linger poignantly on words of sighing and release. Beneath the surface calm lies a knowing play of double meanings, typical of the madrigal tradition, in which death becomes a metaphor for sexual fulfilment. from notes by Owain Park © 2026 *** Follow The Gesualdo Six: Facebook - @TheGesualdoSix X - @thegesualdosix Instagram - @thegesualdosix TikTok - @thegesualdosix Follow Hyperion: Instagram / Facebook / X / Bluesky - @hyperionrecords #gesualdosix #owainpark #hyperion #arcadelt #wishingtree