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Gesualdo Consort/Place CD QS 6210 ASV Ltd:

Madrigals & Motets from Renaissance Naples

This programme sets a varied selection of Gesualdo's compositions alongside those by several of his close associates.  As early as the 1920s Philip Heseltine (better known as Peter Warlock) wrote:

"After three centuries Gesualdo is seen to hold a proud place in the distinguished company of those great men whose music was the crowning glory of the renaissance... he is by no means an isolated person of eccentric genius, but rather the fine flower of a school of daringly imaginative experimental composers."

Recent scholarship has underlined just how enlightened this view was, and a complete edition has confirmed his place in music history.

One of the problems with music historians' approach to Gesualdo was that, extraordinary though his music seemed, his life history held an even greater fascination. Briefly, he had his wife and her lover murdered in flagrante delicto; further genuine details of his life are bizarre, and many more unreliable tales have been added down the years by the locals, as Werner Herzog discovered to his delight when researching his recent film about the composer. In the light of this, it has always been a temptation to draw parallels between Gesualdo's life and his music.

We have few accounts of him from his contemporaries, and they seem to demonstrate that the highly-tortured nature of much of his music was indeed a pose; what his contemporaries called La Maneria: mannerism. Here is Alfonso Fontanelli, himself a gifted composer, on Gesualdo's general disposition:

"The prince, although at first view he does not have the presence of the personage he is, becomes little by little more agreeable. He talks a great deal and gives no sign of being a melancholy man, except in his portrait. He discourses on hunting & music and declares himself an authority on both. He makes an open profession of his interest in the latter, and shows his works in score to everyone in order to induce them to marvel at his art."

Later in the passage Fontanelli feels he must pass a tentative judgement on Gesualdo's music as well:

"Here perhaps I should give my opinion, but I would prefer, with your leave, to suspend judgement until more refined ears have given theirs. It is obvious that his art is infinite, but it is full of attitudes, and moves in an extraordinary way. However, everything is a matter of taste".

Fontanelli's description of this musical style is actually quite perceptive. It is tempting to assume that anyone familiar with Monteverdi's music will be at home with that of Gesualdo, but clearly even Fontanelli was surprised by the extremes of chromaticism and unprepared dissonance that characterise so much of this repertoire. Even 20th century ears may take a moment to adjust, but the reward is in the sheer beauty and expressiveness of this writing.

Of the other composers in this collection Scipione Stella was Gesualdo's court organist, and the possessor of an archicembalo - effectively a microtonal harpsichord which allowed the player to play music which has wandered outside the realms of standard keyboard temperament. Pomponio Nenna was also directly associated with Gesualdo's court in Naples, and has been suggested as his teacher. Certainly Gesualdo's choice of texts seems to have been influenced by those used earlier by Nenna and Stella. Stravinsky, a notable champion of the composer's music, is in no doubt of the pedigree: 

"Gesualdo seems to have helped himself to elements of Nenna's chromatic style and to have pocketed progressions verbatim. In fact Gesualdo's imitations are so sedulous as to appear plain light fingering."

Of the remaining two composers, da Nola is included to provide a reminder of earthier musical styles in Naples, echoed in Nenna's own more sophisticated trio Signora io penso. Luzzaschi is the composer Gesualdo claimed to admire the most, but our choice is in a highly-ornamented style that as far as we know he did not choose to imitate, except to adopt the luscious three-soprano textures in Donna se m'ancidete. The crowning achievement does in the end have to go to Gesualdo himself, whatever the influences, culminating in the remarkable settings of the Tenebrae Responsories, his final work and his undoubted masterpiece.

The madrigal texts set by these composers fall into the category of poesia per musica, and are frequently verses adapted by the composers themselves to suit the expressive quality and stylistic sophistication of the musical ideas. Literary merit is usually overridden by the necessity to provide striking contrasts in mood and emotion, and the persistent use of rather limited repertoire of poetic motifs from the Petrarchan tradition. Particularly common are examples of oxymoron (pain-pleasure, bitter-sweet etc.); extravagant conceits, and, most notably, the fulfilment of life and love through death (with the erotic connotation of death as consummation). For similar reasons the sacred texts centre round the suffering of Christ's passion, Nenna's Christmas responsory being a notable exception.

PLANGE QUASI VIRGO: Weep like a virgin my people, howl shepherds in sackcloth and ashes. For the great day of the Lord will come full of bitterness. Gird yourselves up priests and weep.


© Gerald Place

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