DON CARLO GESUALDO
Dr David C F Wright
Here is one of the most colourful characters
in the history of music. Don Carlo was a murderer! Does that
affect our listening to his music? Should it affect our appreciation
of it?
Gesualdo was a prince. He was a royal. As we know,
laws of some lands do not extend to the royals and if they break such
laws they are not subject to arrest and prosecution. But Gesualdo's
music deserves attention and it may be that the royals of his day exaggerated
its worth to cover up his despicable deeds.
Gesualdo had a notable history of importance going
back to the 11th century. His family had acquired a list of prodigious
titles through judicious marriages and consequent with that had acquired
property on a massive scale. Carlo's grandfather, Luigi Gesualdo had
been ennobled as the first prince of Venosa by King Philip of Spain
on the occasion of the marriage of his eldest son, Fabrizio (Carlo's
father) to Girolama Borromeo, a niece of Pope Pius IV.
Carlo was the second born of four children, two boys
and two girls. The date of his birth is still not certain. It was somewhere
between 1560 and 1562. His cultured father always had musicians in the
house and actually maintained a small band. Carlo's first teacher was
probably Pompino Nenna (c 1555- 1617) who was to include two of Gesualdo's
madrigals in the eighth volume of his works published posthumously in
1618. Giovanni Masque was another possible teacher being in the service
of Fabrizio before Nenna. Another notable musician in Fabrizio's entourage
was Scipione Stella, also known as Scipione Dentice, who composed five
books of madrigals and, of an older generation, Giovanni dell'Arpa.
In such company at Gesualdo's castle young Carlo was musically enriched.
He also came into contact with the most celebrated
poet of the time Torquato Tasso (1544- 1595) who came under Don Carlo's
evil influence and also became unbalanced and paranoid in the last seven
years of his life
But things could have been different!
In 1585, Carlo's elder brother, Luigi, died prematurely.
Suddenly Carlos became the heir of the family titles and the immense
wealth that went with them. The custom in those days was that, in such
circumstances, an early and suitable marriage would be of greatest importance.
He was betrothed to his cousin, Donna Maria d'Avalos, who was twenty
five at the time and a stunning beauty. Her first husband, Federigo
Carafa, whom she married at the age of fifteen, had died after three
years. There were two children of this marriage. Donna Maria married
again in 1580 to Alfonso Gioeni from Sicily but he died in 1585 and,
as his death was so recent special papal dispensation had to be obtained
for Carlo to become Donna Maria's third husband! It proved to be a fatal
alliance.
When the marriage took place is not known but there
was at least one child of the union, Don Emmanuele. But Donna Maria
became sexually involved with Don Fabrizio Carafa, Duke of Andria, who
was married with five children. It was a scandal and an open secret.
Don Carlo knew about this. What was he to do? He was
provoked and constantly tormented without mercy by his wife. What followed
was not perhaps a crime of hot-headed passion, since Gesualdo planned
the event which took place in the palace of Naples on 16th October 1590.
In order to surprise the adulterers he had damaged
the locks to his wife's private rooms so as to effect a sudden entry
without advance warning. He had told her that he was going on a hunting
expedition making it clear that he would not return until the following
day. In fact he hid in a nearby house and when the time was ripe he
and three heavily armed retainers stormed into the bedchamber and hacked
the couple to death with unbelievable savagery. Their bodies were displayed
to public view most of the next day.
A Court of Inquiry of the Vicaria was set up on 27th
October 1590. Public sympathy was on the side of the adulterous couple.
Don Carlo took himself off to his castle at Gesualdo and shut himself
up there for two years. He had all the trees and forest within close
vicinity of the castle cut down so that possible intruders could be
readily observed. He feared that relatives of the victims might take
action.
Gesualdo's madness increased. It was said that there
was another son born after Don Emmanuele who had a remarkable likeness
to the Duke of Andria. Gesualdo, realising the implications, had the
child suspended in a sort of cradle from the roof of the great hall
the ropes of which could be pulled up and down violently. Eventually
the infant died.
Perhaps stirred by conscience Gesualdo undertook the
building of a Capuchin monastery at Gesualdo. There survives to this
day in the chapel of St Maria delle Grazie in that monastery a famous
painting by an anonymous artist of Don Carlo. It is interesting for
in one corner Christ the Redeemer sits in judgement. Don Carlos is the
penitent kneeling. His maternal uncle, the saintly Carlo Borromeo, Archbishop
of Milan, in his cardinal's robes, is resting his hand on the penitent's
shoulders. A number of saints and angels are present praying for Don
Carlo. At the bottom of the picture are two angels being raised out
of purgatory and there is also a winged child. Obviously this depicts
the three victims. There seems little doubt that the painting was commissioned
by Gesualdo himself.
Don Carlo finally emerged from his castle in 1594 to
journey to Ferrara for his second marriage. The bride was Leonora d'Este,
another marriage of convenience. It would be of great advantage to the
d'Este court. Donna Leonora was without heirs and was the last hope
of securing a heir for the dukedom and Don Carlo was the most suitable
choice now that his father had died in 1591.
.
Don Carlo made the long journey in February 1594 to
get married to someone he had not met. The wedding took place on 21st
February amid lavish and extended celebrations. In June the prince returned
without his bride to Naples where he had recently made some important
musical contacts. By December he had returned to Naples via Ferrara
where he had to stay due to dreadful weather conditions. Here he became
acquainted with new styles of singing and he took up residence in the
Palace of Marco Pio.
Ferrara was a centre of late Renaissance culture and
it was here that his first set of madrigals were published although
written many years earlier. His music contacts extended to nearby Mantua
and to Venice. He was clearly influenced by the new accompanied madrigal
as exemplified by the greatest Ferrarese composer, Luzzasco Luzzaschi.
Gesualdo's domestic life was not peaceful. Soon after
he had a son, Alfonsino, he set off for another journey, again without
his wife. In October 1597 old Don Alfonso died and the Duchy of Ferrara
was possessed by the Papacy and so came to an end and the ducal seat
was moved to Modena under Cesare d'Este, brother of Leonora.
In 1600 the child Alfonsino died of a fever. The prince's
relationship with his wife was also dead and she was having an incestuous
affair with her other brother Cardinal Alessandro d'Este whom she wanted
to accompany to Modena for a prolonged stay. Carlo refused to give assent.
This had a serious psychological effect on Leonora.
Gesualdo's son of his first marriage, Don Emmanuele,
married Donna Maria of Furstenberg in October 1607. Leonora then left
for Modena ostensibly to assist in the wedding arrangements of Carlo's
nephew Alfonso to Isabella di Savoia in the Spring of 1608. The prince
did not wish to attend the wedding. In fact he does not seem to have
travelled beyond the confines of Gesualdo and Naples in the last years
of his life. Leonora returned to him after the nephew's wedding only
to be taken ill again and to remove herself again to Modena for an agreed
period of six months to recover her health. But she stayed a year returning
to Gesualdo in October 1610.
In 1611 Gesualdo's fifth and sixth books of madrigals
were published together with his Responsoria.
In his last years he suffered from extreme melancholia.
There is some evidence that he was a manic depressive. He employed servants
to flog him. He said that he was beset with demons in his head. This
madness we find in his last set of madrigals.
Still overcome with guilt he made elaborate preparations
for the building of a chapel in the Gesu Nuovo in Naples (where he was
eventually buried) and the completion of various churches and, in his
will, he made provision for the building of a new church in honour of
his uncle, San Carlo Borromeo.
Leonora remained at Gesualdo for about two years after
Don Carlo's death to conclude his complex estate. She survived for some
years ending her days at a convent of Saint Eufrenia in Modena where
she died in 1637 at the age of 76.
Gesualdo was not a professional musician. He did try
to play the lute though. Some have called his madrigals monstrosities,
others have opined that these are the works of a genius. His first two
books of madrigals are early works and conventional. He mainly uses
texts by Tasso and Guarini. When Tasso became more closely linked with
Gesualdo forty texts were provide but Gesualdo only used one of this
in his Se cosi dolce.
Stravinsky wrote a piece, Monumentum pro Gesualdo di
Venosa, but stipulated that this was not praise for the Italian prince.
The instrumentation excluded the words!.
Gesualdo also composed sacred works, two books of Cantiones
Sacrae which appeared in 1603. The Responsoria appeared in 1611. These
works are more formal.
His works came out in a collection of ten volumes between
1957 and 1966 edited by Wilhelm Weismann and Glen E Watkins.
Copyright: David C F Wright
This article was originally part of a series of talks
on Morality in Music.
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