There is always much talk that the circumstances of Carlo Gesualdo’s life dictated the intensity of his music: dubbed the “principe assassino”, the high-born, well-connected Gesualdo murdered his wife and her lover after finding them together, then beat a hasty retreat to live in near total solitude on his estate. Even without these intrigues and scandals, though, Gesualdo strikes a fascinating figure. His compositions make for far from easy listening. He is a hurricane of emotion, the very portrait of torment. With the strange harmonies, ear-bending melodies, and anguished poetry of these 10 madrigals (and one canzone for solo harp), he rips you apart but doesn’t offer any musical solace or sense of refuge at journey’s end. Rinaldo Alessandrini and his 10 musicians plunge us straight into this full-force gale. It’s almost as if they were doing battle with the scores, but, luckily for us, both sides emerge victorious. The spareness of his forces and the clean countours of Alessandrini’s attacks make Gesualdo’s relentlessness even more plaintive, and the extraordinarily precise sound makes every compositional oddity that much more evident.
We also hear a selection of madrigals by four of Gesualdo’s contemporaries: Filippp de Monte, Pomponio Nenna, Giovan Domenico Montella, and Luzzasco Luzzaschi (the last of whom he knew). All of these pieces are quite interesting on their own terms, but they pale in comparison to the master. Listening to these performances is an undoubtedly exhausting pursuit, but incredibly rewarding all the same. [12/31/2001]
