Don Carlo Gesualdo Prince of Venosa, Count of Conza, was born in the 1560's (scholars have listed his birthdate as 1560, 1561, or 1566) to an aristocratic family in Naples. His family acquired rule over the province of Vanosa in Naples around 1560.
Gesualdo developed an interest in music as a very young child and showed little interest or aptitude for anything else. In 1886 Gesualdo married his cousin, Donna Maria d’Avalos. A marriage within ones own family was common among Italian noble families at the time, primarily to consolidate wealth. After the marriage, Gesualdo quickly produced a son, Don Emmanuele, but by this time he had lost interest in his wife due to preoccupations with music and pursuing affairs.
The Murders
Prior to her marriage, the princess was twice widowed and had two children. She was married to Gesualdo while still young, around 30, and was still highly sexual. Gesualdo's preoccupation with his extracurricular activities led the princess to conduct an affair with the Duke of Andria, Fabrizio Carafa.
In order to conduct the affair the adulterers had bribed the servants at the Palazzo San Severo for protection. Even though the affair was known around the palace the lovers managed to keep it a secret from Gesualdo for nearly two years.
Gesualdo himself originally discovered the affair from his uncle, Don Giulio, who had made sexual advances on the princess but had been rebuffed. Gesualdo decided to present a trap. He would announce leave for a hunting trip and bribe the servants by having them replace the locks.
Eventually he caught the lovers in the act, stabbed them both to death and had their nude corpses displayed on the palace stairs. Gesualdo being a nobleman was exempt from prosecution but fearing revenge he hastily left the palace for his families country estate. A vivid account of the murders was available due to the amount of witnesses and the murders were highly publicized by contemporary poets, including Tasso.
The Music
Gesualdo published five books of Madrigals for five voices and these are his most notorious compositions. The madrigals in the first books are conventional for the time but those in his last two books contain some daring chromatisms (tones outside the diatonic pitches) not found in classical music until the late 19th century. These chromatisms are mostly used in the context of word painting, such as on the words love or death.
Besides his five books of madrigals Gesualdo wrote some religious music. His most well known is Tenebrae Responsoria which is musically in the style of his late madrigals. Gesualdo wrote little instrumental music dispite being a virtuoso on the Lute and Harpsichord. One keyboard piece attributed to him, the Canzon del Principe contains some of the most elaborate keyboard ornamentation of the Renaissance.
Influences and Portrayals
Gesualdo's music asserted little influence on his contemporaries, due to it's complexity, and it was not until the 20th century that his music was largely rediscovered. Russian composer Igor Stravinsky was particularly intrigued, and composed a ballet Monumentum pro Gesualdo in 1960. Currently the famed Italian film director Bernardo Bertolucci (Dreamers, Last Tango in Paris) is working on a biopic of the composer titled "Heaven and Hell".
Sources:
Watkins, Glenn: Gesualdo: The Man and his Music. OUP. 1973
http://www.musicweb-international.com/gesualdo.htm
http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/450557/Heaven-and-Hell/overview
