- aka Gesualdo da Venosa
(1566–1613, Italian)
Gesualdo was an Italian prince and count, lutenist and composer. He killed his wife and her lover red-handed, before living the rest of his life in misery, loneliness, and madness, music-making his only pleasure.
As a composer of the late Renaissance, he is remembered for writing intensely expressive madrigals and sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century.
The madrigal (love song), a setting of a text for polyphony, was developed by the end of the 13th century, and flowered in the hands of Flemish and Italian composers, including Gesualdo.
* Moro, lasso, al mio duolo / dark period, to my sorrow
- from Death of Five Voices, a documentary movie on his music and personality.
* Tenebrae Responsories
- responsories (chants) sung during tenebrae(darkness; Christian religious services during the last 3 days of Holy Week: Thursday, Good Friday, Saturday)
- madrigals on sacred texts
The distinctive ceremony of Tenebrae is the extinguishing of candles one-by-one while a series of readings and psalms is chanted or recited.
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