Gesualdo: O dolce mio tesoro. Madrigali a cinque voci, Libro sesto (1611)

Featuring

Philippe Herreweghe
Collegium Vocale Gent
Carlo Gesualdo

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Composer's Artistic Vision

Gesualdo's Sixth Book of Madrigals primarily focuses on the theme of bittersweet love, accessible only in death, using anonymous or self-written texts.

Compositional Technique

Gesualdo's madrigals, especially in his later collections, constantly use chromaticism, unusual harmonic twists, extreme dissonances, and abrupt pauses, disrupting traditional polyphony.

Performer Biography

Collegium Vocale Gent, founded by Philippe Herreweghe in 1970, was one of the first ensembles to apply new insights into Baroque performing practice to vocal music.

Composer Biography

Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, was initially destined for a religious career, but the early death of his older brother changed his path.

Critical Reception

For a long time, Gesualdo's music was dismissed as the work of an aristocratic dilettante, and his tormented music was linked to his eventful life and the murder of his first wife.

Historical Context

After his first wife's murder, Gesualdo remarried and moved to Ferrara, one of the most progressive musical centers in North Italy, where chromatic experiments were thriving.

Composer Biography

Gesualdo murdered his first wife, Maria d'Avalos, and her lover, Fabrizio Carafa, after catching them in flagrante delicto, an act considered his right and duty by local custom.