Carlo gesualdo short biography

Angelo Branduardi. Roque Cordero. Gaspar Cassado. Raymond Pauls. Pier Gavinie. Yuki Kajiura. Details on the murders are not lacking, because the depositions of witnesses to the magistrates have survived in full. While they disagree on some details, they agree on the principal points, and it is apparent that Gesualdo had help from his servants, who may have done most of the killing.

Gesualdo certainly stabbed Maria multiple times, shouting as he did, "She's not dead yet! The murders were widely publicized, including in verse by poets such as Torquato Tasso and an entire flock of Neapolitan poets, eager to capitalize on the sensation. The salacious details of the murders were broadcast in print, but nothing was done to apprehend the Prince of Venosa.

The police report from the scene makes for shocking reading even after more than years. Accounts on events after the murders differ. According to some contemporary sources, Gesualdo also murdered his second son by Maria, who was an infant, after looking into his eyes and doubting his paternity. Another source indicates that he murdered his father-in-law as well, after the man had come seeking revenge.

Gesualdo had employed a company of men-at-arms to ward off just such an event. Yet, contemporary documentation from official sources for either of these alleged murders is lacking. In , Gesualdo went to Ferrara, one of the centers of progressive musical activity in Italy —especially the madrigal. Ferrara was home to Luzzasco Luzzaschi, one of the most forward-looking composers in the genre.

What she thought at the time about marrying a manic-depressive, music-obsessed murderer is not known, though she married Gesualdo and moved with him back to his estate in In the meantime, he enjoyed more than two years of creative activity in the avant-garde atmosphere of Ferrara, surrounded by some of the finest musicians in Italy. While in Ferrara, he published his first books of madrigals.

Moreover, when he was in Ferrara, he worked with the concerto delle donne , the three virtuoso female singers who were among the most renowned performers in Italy, and for whom many other composers wrote music. In a letter of June 25, , Gesualdo indicated he was writing music for the three women in the concerto delle donne. After returning to his castle at Gesualdo from Ferrara in , he attempted to set up a similar situation to that which existed in Ferrara, with a group of resident, virtuoso musicians who would perform his music.

While his estate became a center of music-making, it was for Gesualdo alone. With his considerable financial resources, he was able to hire singers and instrumentalists for his own pleasure, but he was a solitary man by nature and his estate never became a cultural center the way the d'Este estate at Ferrara did. From about until his death in , he hardly ever left his castle, and music seems to have been his only passion.

Most of his famous music was published in Naples in and , and the most notoriously chromatic and difficult portion of it was all written during his period of isolation. The relationship between Gesualdo and his new wife was not good. Princeton — Cite this article Pick a style below, and copy the text for your bibliography. January 9, Retrieved January 09, from Encyclopedia.

Then, copy and paste the text into your bibliography or works cited list. Because each style has its own formatting nuances that evolve over time and not all information is available for every reference entry or article, Encyclopedia. Don Carlo Gesualdo , Prince of Venosa ca. Few matched him in writing music so removed from traditional modal theory and practice.

Carlo Gesualdo was born in Naples. Nenna's madrigals, in particular, influenced Gesualdo's style. After the death of his older brother in , the composer became heir to the Gesualdo title. With the title came an arranged marriage to his cousin, a marriage that was a catastrophe for both parties. Donna Maria d'Avalos, twice married before she became Gesualdo's wife, openly preferred the love of another.

In , to avenge his honor, Gesualdo ordered the guilty pair murdered, together with his second child, whose legitimacy was suspect. On several occasions Gesualdo set to music the lyrics of his friend Tasso, whose morbid nature was so similar to his own; and hearing the chromatic experiments of Luzzaschi and Vicentino may well have reinforced the direction of his own musical development.

Gesualdo remained at Ferrara for 2 years, frequently taking trips to Florence, where he heard the music of the Camerata. Shortly before the death of his father-in-law in , Gesualdo left northern Italy and returned to Naples, where he remained for the rest of his life. He died on Sept. Gesualdo's extant works in the collected edition issued by Wilhelm Weismann and Glenn E.

Watkins Hamburg, — comprise 19 sacrae cantiones for five voices and 20 for six and seven voices, 27 Holy Week responsories for six voices, and madrigals for five voices. Not only were the madrigals the most numerous part of his production, but they were also reissued more frequently than the sacred pieces.

Carlo gesualdo short biography

Gesualdo's melancholy nature often led him to lyrics of overwhelming sadness. By using chromatic tones, even earlier associated with intense feelings, he heightened the expressiveness of the poetry through music. Although his chromatic passages were sometimes mere pictorial "madrigalisms," Gesualdo more often delineated the overall mood of the text rather than individual words.

A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Carlo Gesualdo]]; see its history for attribution. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. Biography [ edit ]. Early life [ edit ]. Homicide [ edit ]. Successor [ edit ]. Ferrara years [ edit ]. Return to Gesualdo and final years [ edit ].

Compositions and style [ edit ]. See also: List of compositions by Carlo Gesualdo. Moro lasso al mio duolo Problems playing this file? See media help. Reception [ edit ]. Music based on Gesualdo's life and music [ edit ]. This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section.

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