Music in the Renaissance
by Gustave Reese
Period: Renaissance
Born: c. 1560 in Naples, Italy
Died: Sunday, September 8, 1613 in Gesualdo,
Avellino
Nation of Origin: Italy
Major Works:
Madrigals
Other Information:
Don Carlo Gesualdo, prince of Venosa, may have been born in Venice
on March 8, 1566. Birth records from 16th century Venice are not
always reliable. Standard reference literature often states "circa
1560 or 1561" as his birth date. In any case, Gesualdo is known to
have died September 8, 1613. He was born into an old and noble
Neapolitan family and was the nephew of Saint Charles Borromeo. He
became interested in music as a youth and began composing
conservative madrigals and sacred works. His personal life,
however, was not so conservative. In 1590 he arranged for the
murder of his adulterous wife, the lovely Maria d'Avalos, and her
lover. Although he was never brought to justice for these acts, the
scandal was enormous and many a poet of the time wrote stanzas
proclaiming the misfortune of Maria d'Avalos.
In 1594 he married a princess of the d'Este family and resided for
a time at the court of Ferrara. There he published his first four
books of madrigals between 1594 and 1596. Although his early
compositions are quite conservative, his later madrigals and sacred
works show the influence of his contemporary Luzzasco Luzzaschi
(1545-1607). After hearing the music of Luzzaschi, Gesualdo began
to evolve a more chromatic and sensual style of composition. His
later compositions include two books of madrigals and three volumes
of sacred works. Music historians often refer to Gesualdo's later
style as pre-Wagnerian in that it foreshadows by more than 200
years the daring chromaticism of Richard Wagner. Gesualdo's later
music is characterized by fragmented poetry, unconventional
cadences, exaggerated rhetorical devices, ambiguous successions of
chords, and a free mixture of counterpoint and homophony. He is
considered to be one of the finest and certainly one of the most
innovative composers of Italian madrigals in the late
Renaissance.
Essay contributed by:
Steven G. Estrella
Composer Bibliography:
Watkins, Glenn, Gesualdo, The Man and His Music, London,
1973.
Gray, Cecil and Heseltine, Philip, Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of
Venosa, Musician and Murderer, London, 1926.
General Bibliography:
Kennedy, Michael, The Oxford Dictionary of
Music, Oxford University Press, 2nd Edition, 1997, ISBN:
0198691629
Reese, Gustave, Music in the Renaissance, W.W. Norton &
Company; November 1959, ISBN: 0393095304
Sachs, Curt, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World , W. W.
Norton & Company, 1943, ASIN: 0393097188
Sadie, Stanley and Tyrrell, John; Editors, The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Groves Dictionaries, Inc.,
January 2001, ISBN: 1561592390
Slonimsky, Nicolas and Kuhn, Laura; Editors,
Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Gale Group,
December 2000, ISBN: 0028655257
Links to essays at other sites:
Music in the Renaissance by Gustave Reese |
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Biographical essay at the Karadar site
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directly.
Biographical essay at the Naxos site
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Rocco Brancati's Site (in Italian)
The
Gesualdo Consort of London
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