Who's afraid of Carlo Gesualdo?

FOOTNOTES:

1. [01:16] Letter from Emilio de Cavalieri in Rome to Accolti, December 19, 1593. Warren Kirkendale, Emilio de' Cavalieri "Gentiluomo Romano" (Florence: Leo S.Olschki, 2001), p. 350. Quoted and shortly translated in Newcomb, “Carlo Gesualdo and a Musical Correspondence of 1594”, in The Musical Quarterly, Oct., 1968, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Oct., 1968) [jstor], p. 411.

2. [02:41] Letter from Alfonso Fontanelli, 18 February 1594. See Anthony Newcomb, The Madrigal at Ferrara 1579-1597 (Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 126.

3. [02:58] Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Sixth book of madrigals (Ferrara, 1596), preface. English translation in Anthony Newcomb, Luzzaschi: Complete Unaccompanied Madrigals (A&R editions).

4. [04:01 The instrument shown on the video was built in 1974 by the Formentelli workshop in collaboration with Marco Tiella. For more details see the website of Studio31+ [link]. The fact that Luzzaschi was one of the few who could play it is mentioned in Hercole Bottrigari, Il Desiderio (1594), pp. 40f. See also Warren Kirkendale, Emilio de' Cavalieri "Gentiluomo Romano" (Florence: Leo S.Olschki, 2001), p. 148.

5. [04:10] Gasparo Sardi, Libro delle historie ferraresi (Ferrara: G. Gironi, 1646) [link], agguinta, p.90: Carlo Gesualdo "Lodò particolarmente il Sig. Luzzasco de Lazzaschi organista, per l'esquisita sua maniera di suonare et per certo strumento inarmonico, che suonando gli fé udire". See Warren Kirkendale, Emilio de' Cavalieri "Gentiluomo Romano" (Florence: Leo S.Olschki, 2001), p. 148.

6. [07:37] Tomás de Santa María, Arte de tañer fantasía (Valladolid, 1565), Book II, Cap. XIII. Also, see our episode “Consonances according to Tomás de Santa María” [YouTube], minute 16:22.

7. [11:40] See our episode “High clefs (so called Chiavetta) and transposition” [YouTube].

8. [14:03] The example shown in the video is from Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s “Cor mio deh non lingerie”, from his Madrigali per cantare e sonare (Rome, 1601) [imslp]. For more information about this see our dedicated video about Luzzaschi [YouTube].

9. [16:21] See our episode “Vincenzo Galilei VS Polyphony and Word Painting” [YouTube], minute 2:43.

10. [22:28] Gesualdo Carlo, Partitura delli sei libri de' Madrigali a cinque voci (Genova, 1613) [Gaspari] [Strassburg]

11. [22:33] The closest thing to such a publication was when Rore’s madrigals, only those for four voices, were printed in 1577 with the title: "Tutti i madrigali di Cipriano di Rore a quattro voci, spartiti et accommodati per sonar d'ogni sorte d'instrumento perfetto, & per Qualunque studioso do Contrapunti" ["All the four-part madrigals of Cipriano de Rore, set in score and suitable for playing on all polyphonic (perfect) instruments, as well as students of counterpoint."] [imslp].

12. [23:00] For the general reception of Gesualdo see Glenn Watkins, Gesualdo: the man and his music (2nd edition, Clarendon press: Oxford 1991), pp. 365-370. See also Catherine Deutsch, "Antico or Moderno? Reception of Gesualdo’s Madrigals in the Early Seventeenth Century", in The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 30, No. 1 (Winter 2013), pp. 28-48 [jstor]. The quote shown in the video (“scraps of polyphony”) is from Lorenzo Bianconi (translated by David Bryant), Music in the seventeenth century (Cambridge University Press, 2011), p. 7.

APPENDIX - Selected works inspired by Carlo Gesualo

Musical compositions:

• 1957-9 Tres sacrae Cantiones, by Igor Stravinsky

• 1960 Monumentum pro Gesualdo, by Igor Stravinsky

• 1963 Moro lasso, by Peter Eötvös

• 1965 Variations on a Theme of Gesualdo, by Lalo Shirfin

• 1969 Lamento pacis (1969), by Ton de Leeuw

• 1971 Omaggio a Gesualdo, by Jan van Vlijmen

• 1972 Tenebrae Super Gesualdo, by Peter Maxwell Davies

• 1984 Variations on a madrigal by Gesuadlo, by Bruch Adolph

• 1997 Tenebre, by Scott Glasgow

• 1998 Le voci sottovetro: Elaborazioni da Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa, by Salvatore Sciarrino

• 2004 Sulla morte e la follia, by Sergio Blardony

• 2008 Tenebrae, by John Pickard

• 2016 The Prince of Venosa, by Caio Facó

Operas:

• 1992 Maria di Venosa, by Francesco d'Avalos

• 1993 Gesualdo, by Alfred Schnittke

• 1998 Gesualdo, by Franz Hummel

• 1998 The Prince of Venosa, by Scott Glasgow

• 1998 Luci mie traditrici, by Salvatore Sciarrino

• 2003 Gesualdo, by Bo Holten

• 2010 Gesualdo, by Marc-André Dalbavie

Novels:

• 1895 Histoire de Dona Maria D’Avalos (in Le Puits de sainte Claire), by Anatole France

• 1926 Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa: Musician and Murderer, by C. Gray and P. Heseltine

• 1967 Assassinio a cinque voci, by A. Consiglio

• 1981 Clone (in Queremos tanto a Glenda), by Julio Cortázar

Movies:

• 1982 Gesualdo the Prince, by Colin Nears

• 1995 Gesualdo: Death for Five Voices, by Werner Herzog

• 2013 O dolorosa gioia. Carlo Gesualdo by Francesco Leprino

• 2014 Scandalous Overtures - Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa: Murderer at Large, by Robert Greenberg

• 2019 Carlo Gesualdo – Murder, Madness And Madrigals, by Andreas Morell

Credits:

Created by Elam Rotem, October 2021.

Special thanks to Iason Marmaras, Netta Huebscher, Peter Schubert, Martin Morell, Hannah Lane and Anne Smith.