Great Composers and Their Lives

Don Carlo Gesualdo was not only a wonderful and amazing composer, lutenist and harpsichordist, he was also a ferocious and violent man. Not much is known about his life. There is evidence that he spent most of his life in Naples, Italy, where he lived the life of a noble man. He was namely known at the time as Prince of Venosa. His mother was the niece of Pope Pius the IV and his uncle Carlo Borromeo was later to become a saint.

When he originally started composing, he disguised his own name using a pseudonym, although soon after this was known by a great many for the following reason. You see, Gesualdo not only became known for writing tremendous music, but also violently and brutally killing his wife, who was actually his own cousin, and her lover, having found them both in bed together. After the murder, he decided to let the cat out of the bag and compose under his real name.

After this horrible event, he married another woman, Leonara d’Este, the niece of Duke Alfonso of Ferrara. The Ferrara court, known to have been very conscious of the arts and quite a thriving center of musical activity, enabled Gesualdo to publish four books of madrigals. A madrigal is an unaccompanied part-song for 2 or three voices, following a strict poetic form. These madrigals are what put him on the musical map in history.

He dedicated much of his life to music, even to the point of not having much contact with anyone, not even his wife. Many had considered him to be insane. There were also many rumours that his marriage was going to break up. His only son, Alfonsino, died in 1600, making him truly worry about his family line having to end with him.

Gesualdo had gone through a lot of horrible experiences, yet this had quite an effect upon his music. He tended to use a lot of chromaticism in his music, using notes not belonging to a basic musical scale, in quite a violent manner, making them very unique for the Renaissance Period, which had been strict in its writing style. For this reason, he had been recognised as a great experimenter in the history of music. He brought forth music that was much ahead of its time, not to be heard again until the 19^th century. His music was not only filled not only with incredible skill and technique, but a ton of emotion as well.

To listen to music by this great composer click here.