Carlo Gesualdo

Carlo Gesualdo (c. 1566–1613) was an Italian composer and prince of Venosa, renowned for chromatic madrigals and for murdering his first wife and her lover.

Madrigal: A secular vocal composition, especially one setting poetry for several voices in Renaissance and early Baroque music. Gesualdo’s best-known works belong to the Italian madrigal tradition.
Moro, lasso, al mio duolo: A five-voice madrigal by Gesualdo, published in his Sixth Book of Madrigals in 1611. Its abrupt shifts and chromatic harmonies make his late style especially vivid.
Venosa: A town in Basilicata, southern Italy, historically associated with the principality ruled by the Gesualdo family. Gesualdo held the title Prince of Venosa, linking his musical career to this territory.
Pomponio Nenna: An Italian composer of madrigals and sacred music active in Naples around the turn of the seventeenth century. Nenna worked in the musical world surrounding Gesualdo and dedicated music to him.
Gesualdo: A Musical Portrait: A 1960 orchestral work by Igor Stravinsky based on music by Gesualdo. Stravinsky’s adaptation made Gesualdo a direct presence in twentieth-century concert music.
Chromaticism: The use of pitches outside a composition’s prevailing diatonic scale. His madrigals use striking chromatic motion to intensify words and affect.
Tenebrae Responsories: Liturgical responsories sung during the Tenebrae services of Holy Week. Gesualdo set these texts in a sacred collection published in 1611.
Alfonso II d'Este: The Duke of Ferrara from 1559 to 1597 and a major patron of music and the arts. Gesualdo’s second marriage connected him to the Este court and its musical culture.
Luzzasco Luzzaschi: An Italian composer and organist who directed music at the Este court in Ferrara. Luzzaschi’s courtly music offers a close contemporary comparison for Gesualdo’s work.
Gesualdo (opera): An opera by Alfred Schnittke, composed in 1993, that dramatizes episodes from Gesualdo’s life. Schnittke turned the composer’s biography and music into a modern operatic subject.

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