Customer Reviews

Gesualdo: Madrigaux (Madrigals)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In Renaissance music, the madrigals of Gesualdo are a universe unto themselves. As a form, the madrigal represents a huge body of literature, much of which is rather light and entertaining. Not Gesualdo, if there was ever a dramatic madrigal-opera style, this is it. Every nuance of emotion is conveyed with beautifully startling and sudden expressionistic harmonic changes. The music seems to want to break out of itself as it reaches across centuries to find resonance in our hearts. The chromaticisms are exquisitely beautiful. You just have to let your ear adjust to it. Think expressionistic romanticism and you might get close to the feeling of this music.

Gesualdo's music is fiendishly difficult to sing. The harmonies and chromaticisms offer little for the singer to hang on to. In most cases, one is just satisfied with getting through this stuff and compared with what this group does, that is all you get from other ensembles. Here you have the play of dissonant suspensions, the sudden dynamic changes on a single note, the startling break-away rhythms and tempos and overall elasticity that is vitally necessary to make this music sound.

Forget about the fact that Gesualdo is the only composer in history to have been a nurder. The true story of the murder of his beautiful but faithless young wife and her lover while they were making love in bed. A crime which in Renaissance Italy, at those times, was excusable. Forget that Gesualdo is often depicted and characerized as spending the rest of his life in a dark castle cell, doing penitance and writing his twisted almost unsingable madrigals. Yes you will hear a full share of anguish and "morire's" symbolising his yearning to die for love.

What this superb ensemble delivers is a Gesualdo who in the end is not simply interesting, anguished or penitential but exquisitely beautiful as a fine Carravagio painting or michelangelo sculpture of the four 'prigione' (prisoners).

Gesualdo: Madrigaux (Madrigals)~ Carlo Gesualdo is a great recording with some of best Madigrals that I have ever heard. Gesualdo was a genius, and a bit of a lunatic that murdered his wife and her lover in bed. Singing Gesualdo's works is very demanding and requires the person to very well schooled in order for it to sound just right. Miss one note and it falls apart. The book-let is a splendid work of art with a well written essay and great liner notes. The art work is very well chosen and I would definitely recommend this amazing recording.

I can't imagine how one of the reviewers could describe this music as "This is grand and very comfortable music. We easily converse or work while it plays, as charming as a court musician in the next room. It is an unexpected treat" Noone that knows Gesulado's musiccould ever describe it in such terms.

Around the Baroque period in the 17th century, there was some unsurety whether music was tending from modality to tonality or atonality. Gesualdo was the chief atonal composer of the period. He once caught his wife & her lover in bed & responded by hacking them both to pieces with an ax. Afterwards, he felt such immense guilt that he spent the rest of his life having his servants torture him every morning before he would compose this weird music. For the unique, extreme eccentricity of his life & his art, 5 stars, but minus one because I don't think this cd offers quite the best selection. It's great, but see what else you can find first.

Aaron Copland, in his "What to Listen For in Music", recommended that we hear Gesualdo's "Madrigaux", and so I bought it. The performance and the recording are technically flawless. The music itself has diverse tempos and styles, such as the lamenting "Non t'amo..." and the harp instrumental "Canzon francese...". This is grand and very comfortable music. We easily converse or work while it plays, as charming as a court musician in the next room. It is an unexpected treat.