Gesualdo da Venosa, Carlo (EN)

Gesualdo da Venosa Carlo, Don, *between 1560 and 1562 Naples (?), †8 September 1613 Gesualdo, Italian composer. He inherited the title of Prince of Venosa from his father. He was the nephew of Charles Borromeo and a relative of Pope Pius IV; he was also a friend of Tasso. He probably did not receive a systematic musical education, yet he grew up in an atmosphere deeply devoted to music and the arts. His father, Fabrizio, took a keen interest in the fine arts and held music in particularly high esteem. He maintained a permanent group of musicians at his residence, among whom J. de Macque (in Fabrizio’s service in 1588–89), and later P. Nenna, may have been the teachers who introduced Gesualdo to the art of composition. In 1586 Gesualdo married his cousin Maria d’Avalos. On 16 October 1590 he murdered his wife and her lover, Fabrizio Carafa, third Duke of Andria. In 1594 he entered into a second marriage with Eleonora d’Este, thereby establishing close ties with the court of Ferrara, then one of the most active musical centers in Italy. Shortly after the wedding he undertook a journey lasting several months from Ferrara to Naples and Gesualdo; he also spent several weeks in Venice. It was probably during this period that he concluded a contract with the publishing house of Gardano for the publication of his madrigals. He may also have met G. Gabrieli, who at the time was the principal organist at St. Mark’s Basilica. On his return journey to Ferrara (December 1594), he stopped briefly in Florence, where he spent much time in the company of J. Corsi; it may therefore be assumed that Gesualdo was well acquainted with the new tendencies emerging in contemporary music. He lived in Ferrara for about two years, and this was the most creative period of his life. During this time, he maintained numerous contacts not only with the leading musicians of Ferrara itself, but also with those of other cities, including Venice, Mantua, Florence, and Padua. After this period, he returned permanently to Gesualdo.

Carlo Gesualdo was a composer who wrote primarily vocal music. The vast majority of his works are madrigals; through this branch of his oeuvre, he became part of the development of the genre which, in accordance with the aesthetic ideals of the time, made the text the central focus of the composer’s attention. Gesualdo chose for musical setting texts that were generally short, consisting of 4–9 lines, but carrying a strong emotional or even dramatic charge. These texts, full of highly significant words concentrated in oxymorons – that is, combinations of opposing meanings (for example, “living death”) – contained complex senses and often transformed meanings. In setting a text to music, Gesualdo da Venosa sought to treat each fragment individually. A poetic line, unless it constituted a complete syntactic and semantic unit, was not the basic determinant of phrase structure in his compositions. A phrase might equally consist of two combined lines, half a line, or even a single word if it possessed sufficient weight within the literary and semantic context. The principal themes of Gesualdo’s madrigal texts are suffering, despair, and death, although pastoral motifs also appear occasionally, (especially in Books I and II). In general, the madrigals display a thoroughly through-composed form. Repetitions, often modified or transposed to another tonal or harmonic level, serve to emphasize important textual passages. These repetitions most frequently involve the closing couplet or final line, the section containing the climax or point of the poem, but they are also found in other semantically important internal passages. Gesualdo’s interest in words and his search for new and expressive means of interpretation led him to an extraordinary expansion of musical constructional devices. His polyphonic style is characterized by stretto-like entries of the initial segments of the subjects in both direct and inverted forms; frequent modifications of themes during their development, to the point where they become unrecognizable; the introduction of paired imitation; and the use of double, triple, and quadruple counterpoint (as in Arde il mio cor, Book IV). Gesualdo employed chromaticism on a large scale, made possible by the use of an almost complete range of accidentals (seven sharps and six flats). As a consequence, he introduced chromatic melodic motion as well as intervals previously avoided, (such as the augmented fourth, diminished fifth, augmented fifth, seventh, ninth, and tenth). Chromatic melodic progressions appear gradually in his works, from sequences of three or four semitones (already in Book II) to descending successions of seven semitones (Or, che in gioia, Book IV). He applied chromatic melody even within very short motifs and in imitative contexts (Merce grido, Book V), and it appears in all voices of the polyphonic texture. The four-voice opening of the madrigal Moro, lasso, al mio duolo (Book VI) contains eleven of the twelve degrees of the chromatic scale. The use of chromaticism was directly connected with harmonic progressions, since the introduction of accidentals was often motivated by the desire to obtain major thirds (through sharps) or minor thirds (through flats) in the triads that Gesualdo built on all degrees of the diatonic scale. Thus, within his works one encounters both progressions consistent with modal style (including sequences of sixth chords) and others which – using terminology associated with the later functional tonal system – might be described as, for example, D7 – °T = E7 – a, or chains of dominant–tonic relations. There are also chord successions separated by a major second, chromatically altered third-related (mediant) relations, tritone relations, and fifth-relations, (with D–T appearing not only in cadences). The richness of Gesualdo’s harmonic language also results from his use of prepared and unprepared dissonances (classical dissonance treatment being frequently combined with chromaticism), single suspensions (4–3) and double suspensions (6–5, 4–3), seventh and ninth chords, sixth chords, and false relations involving semitones, (the latter occurring more often in cadences than within the body of a composition). Gesualdo da Venosa employed chords both in root position and in both inversions, showing particular interest in inversions; the second inversion was treated not only as a suspension (6–5, 4–3) but also independently. Three principal types of cadences appear in Gesualdo’s works: authentic (V–I), plagal (IV–I), and Phrygian. His preference for sustaining cadences over a pedal tone favored plagal progressions. In Phrygian cadences, chromaticism is frequently introduced. Gesualdo applied the principle of tonal unity only to the composition as a whole: a work begins and ends in the same tonality, which also appears at important structural points within the piece. Nevertheless, the course of the composition itself abounds in surprising harmonic combinations.

The sacred music of Gesualdo da Venosa is written in the same stylistic convention as his madrigals. It includes two volumes of motets (Sacrae cantiones) as well as a complete cycle of 27 responsories intended for performance during the Office of Tenebrae in Holy Week, together with Psalm 55 (Miserere) and the Canticle of Zechariah (Benedictus Dominus Deus Israel), which also belonged to that liturgical service. The selected texts belong to the same expressive categories already observed in Gesualdo’s madrigals, and the method of text setting is likewise similar. In the motets, through-composed form clearly predominates, although some works are based on repetitive schemes (for example, ABB1 in O vos omnes). R. Craft aptly distinguished two formal types in Gesualdo’s Sacrae cantiones. The first type is characterized by continuous polyphonic development based on one or several motifs; the second consists of sectional works that begin homophonically, move into a polyphonic section, and conclude with a repetition of either the first or second section. In general, the motets display a tendency toward diatonicism, although they also contain passages rich in chromaticism and dissonance (Heu mihi Domine). Gesualdo employed the cantus firmus technique in only three works. Two motets place the cantus firmus within a canon (Assumpta est Maria in a three-voice canon and Da pacem in a two-voice canon). In the responsory Adstiterunt reges, the melody of the long-note cantus firmus is based on chant. The arrangement of the responsories demonstrates that Gesualdo was also interested in the theatrical possibilities of music. He selected texts among the most dramatic in the entire liturgy, which offered opportunities for extreme compositional solutions: intense chromaticism, a large number of dissonances (especially unprepared ones), surprising harmonic progressions, and above all strong and sudden contrasts of melody, rhythm, tonality, texture, and register. The formal scheme of the responsories itself provided opportunities for contrasting larger sections. Their structure, aBcB, corresponds to the construction of the text: aB forming the responsory proper and c the verse. Section B generally possesses the richest texture, while in sections a and c the number of voices is sometimes reduced. Variants of this basic design also appear: the simpler R–V–R pattern (without subdivision of the responsory into aB, as in Caligaverunt oculi mei) and the more elaborate ABcBA structure (Ecce quomodo and Sepulto Domino). The absence of tonal unity between successive sections emphasizes the sectional construction of the text and often creates a sense of tonal suspension, fully consistent with the open-ended nature of the cycle. Only the final (ninth) responsory for each of the three days begins and ends in the same tonality. The texts of the responsories also provided many opportunities for musical depiction of individual words and dramatic situations (Velum templi scissum est, Tristis est anima mea). The diversity of structure and the frequent, abrupt changes, resulting on the one hand from the rejection of classical polyphonic continuity and on the other from an extraordinary sensitivity to the emotional coloring of the text, constitute the fundamental characteristic of Gesualdo’s music. His style is no longer marked by Renaissance “the affections of restraint and noble simplicity,” but rather by violent Baroque emotions passing “from violent pain to exuberant joy” (Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque Era: From Monteverdi to Bach, New York: Norton, 1947); it is a style oscillating between “diatonic-melodic allegro and chromatic-harmonic adagio” (G. Watkins Gesualdo. The Man and His Music, Londyn 1991).

Literature: F. Keiner Die Madrigale Gesualdo von Venosa, Leipzig 1914; C. Gray and Ph. Heseltine C. Gesualdo. Musician and Murderer, London 1926; F. Vatielli Il Principe di Venosa e Leonora d’Este, Milan 1941; B. Disertori Un libro italiano su C. Gesualdo, “Rivista Musicale Italiana” XLV, 1941; H. Redlich Gesualdo and the Italian Madrigal, “The Listener” iss. 18 IX 1952; C. Dahlhaus Zur chromatischen Technik C. Gesualdo, “Analecta musicologica” V, 1967; L. Finscher Gesualdos „Atonalität” und das Problem des musikalischen Manierismus, “Archiv für Musikwissenschaft” XXIX, 1972; G. Watkins Gesualdo. The Man and His Music, London 1973; E. Apfel and C. Dahlhaus Studien zur Theorie und Geschichte der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik, Munich 1974; C. Dahlhaus Gesualdos manieristische Dissonanztechnik, in: Convivium musicorum, celebratory publication for W. Boetticher, Berlin 1974; G. Watkins C. Gesualdo and the Delimitations of Late Mannerist Style, “Studi musicali” III, 1974.