Carlo Gesualdo

Gesualdo's family had acquired the principality of Venosa, in what is now the Province of Potenza, Southern Italy, in 1560.

Older sources give the year of birth as c. 1560 or 1561, but this is no longer accepted.

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (between 8 March 1566 and 30 March 1566 – 8 September 1613) was Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza.

He was probably born on March 30, 1566, three years after his older brother, Luigi, though some sources have stated that he was born on March 8.

A letter from Gesualdo's mother, Geronima Borromeo, indicates that the year is most likely 1566.

Gesualdo's uncle was Carlo Borromeo, later Saint Charles Borromeo.

His mother was the niece of Pope Pius IV.

Carlo was most likely born at Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, but little else is known about his early life.

His brother Luigi was to become the next Prince of Venosa, but after his untimely death in 1584, Carlo became the designated successor.

Abandoning the prospect of an ecclesiastical career,, he married, in 1586, his first cousin, Donna Maria d'Avalos, the daughter of Carlo d'Avalos, prince of Montesarchio and Sveva Gesualdo.

They had one child, a son, Don Emmanuele.

Gesualdo had a musical relationship with Pomponio Nenna, though whether it was student-to-teacher, or colleague-to-colleague, is uncertain.

Regardless of this, however, he had a single-minded devotion to music from an early age, and is said to have showed little interest in anything else.

In addition to the lute, he played the harpsichord, and guitar.

In addition to Nenna, Gesualdo's accademia included the composers Giovanni de Macque, Scipione Dentice, Scipione Stella, Scipione Lacorcia, Ascanio Mayone, and the nobleman lutenist Ettorre de la Marra.

Some years into her marriage with Gesualdo, Donna Maria began an affair with Fabrizio Carafa, third Duke of Andria and seventh Count of Ruovo.

On the night of October 16, 1590, at the Palazzo San Severo in Naples, the two lovers were caught in flagrante by Gesualdo, who killed them both on the spot.

The day after the killing, a delegation of Neapolitan officials inspected the room in Gesualdo's apartment where the killings had taken place, and interrogated witnesses.

The delegation's report did not lack in gruesome details, including the mutilation of the corpses and, according to the witnesses, Gesualdo going into the bedroom a second time "because he wasn't certain yet they were dead".

The Gran Corte della Vicaria found Gesualdo had not committed a crime.

About a year after the gruesome end of his first marriage, Gesualdo's father died and he thus became the third Prince of Venosa and eighth Count of Conza.

By 1594, Gesualdo had arranged for another marriage, this time to Leonora d'Este, the niece of Duke Alfonso II.

That year, Gesualdo ventured to Ferrara, the home of the d'Este court and also one of the centers of progressive musical activity in Italy, especially the madrigal; Gesualdo was especially interested in meeting Luzzasco Luzzaschi, one of the most forward-looking composers in the genre.

In a letter of June 25, 1594, Gesualdo indicated he was writing music for the three women in the concerto delle donne; however, it is probable that some of the music he wrote, for example that in the newly developing monodic and/or concertato styles, has not survived.

After returning to his castle at Gesualdo from Ferrara in 1595, he set up a situation similar to the one that existed in Ferrara, with a group of resident virtuoso musicians who would sing his own music.

While his estate became a center of music-making, it was for Gesualdo alone.

With his considerable financial resources, he was able to hire singers and instrumentalists for his own pleasure.

He rarely left his castle, taking delight in nothing but music.

Leonora was married to Gesualdo and moved with him back to his estate in 1597.

In the meantime, he engaged in more than two years of creative activity in the innovative environment of Ferrara, surrounded by some of the finest musicians in Italy.

While in Ferrara, he published his first book of madrigals.

He also worked with the concerto delle donne, the three virtuoso female singers who were among the most renowned performers in the country, and for whom many other composers wrote music.

"His mother died when he was only seven, and at the request of his uncle Carlo Borromeo, for whom he was named, he was sent to Rome to be set on the path of an ecclesiastical career. There he was placed under the protection of his uncle Alfonso (d. 1603), then dean of the College of Cardinals, later unsuccessful pretender to the papacy, and ultimately Archbishop of Naples."

His most well-known music was published in Naples in 1603 and from the castle of Gesualdo (with printer Giovanni Giacomo Carlino) in 1611.

The most notoriously chromatic and difficult portions of it were all written during his period of self-isolation.

The relationship between Gesualdo and his new wife was not good; she accused him of abuse, and the Este family attempted to obtain a divorce.

She spent more and more time away from the isolated estate.

Gesualdo wrote many angry letters to Modena where she often went to stay with her brother.

As a composer he is known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century.

He is also known for killing his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto.