Best Gesualdo

Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae Responsories are three sets of sacred vocal works published in 1611 for the services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday. Written for six unaccompanied voices, they set responsory texts associated with Christ's Passion and burial. The music combines Renaissan...

Dolcissima mia vita is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fifth Book of Madrigals in 1611. Its anonymous text addresses a beloved whose desired death-dealing kiss would transform suffering into sweetness. Gesualdo's setting is noted for abrupt chromatic shifts, dissona...

"Luci serene e chiare" is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fourth Book of Madrigals in 1596. The text praises the beloved's serene, bright eyes and contrasts images of light, pleasure, wounds, and death, giving the composer opportunities for close musical illustratio...

Gesualdo’s *Moro, lasso, al mio duolo* is a madrigal from Book VI of his complete collection. Composed in 1611, this piece showcases the composer's intense chromaticism and dramatic use of dissonance, creating a powerfully emotive lament. It represents Gesualdo’s most radical exploration of musical...

O dolorosa gioia is an Italian secular madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, a composer noted for intensely expressive writing around the turn of the seventeenth century. Its text treats love as a paradoxical source of both pleasure and suffering. The music reflects that conflict through chromatic harmony, ab...

"Se la mia morte brami" is an Italian secular madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo for five unaccompanied voices, published in his sixth book of madrigals in 1611. Its text addresses a beloved who desires the speaker's death, allowing Gesualdo to connect images of desire, suffering, and dying with abrupt harm...

"Mille volte il dì moro" is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his third book of madrigals. Its text uses the Petrarchan image of dying repeatedly through the emotional pain and ecstasy of love. Gesualdo reinforces the poem's contrasts through chromatic movement, abrupt ha...

Tu m'uccidi, o crudele is an Italian secular madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, a composer known for intensely expressive text setting and unconventional chromatic harmony. Its text addresses a cruel beloved whose actions metaphorically kill the speaker, giving the composer opportunities to contrast anguis...

Gesualdo’s Tenebrae Responsories are a collection of Renaissance choral works composed by Italian composer Carlo Gesualdo around 1607. These pieces utilize complex harmonic progressions, notably featuring intense chromaticism, to depict the events of Holy Week. They remain significant within classic...

Italian devotional madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo on a text about Christ's suffering and death, blending his intense chromatic style with sacred subject matter.

Mercè grido piangendo is an Italian five-voice madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fourth Book of Madrigals. Its text presents a tearful plea for mercy, which Gesualdo intensifies through chromatic harmony, abrupt changes of pace, and contrasts between closely packed and more exposed vocal...

Resta di darmi noia is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his sixth book of madrigals in 1611. Its text addresses a source of emotional torment and asks for an end to suffering, a subject suited to Gesualdo's intensely expressive treatment of individual words. The setting...

S'io non miro non moro is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his third book of madrigals. Its text uses a paradox of looking, death, and desire to express the emotional contradictions of courtly love. Gesualdo sets the words through shifting textures, chromatic movement, a...

Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo addressing the beloved's eyes as the source of the speaker's life, expressed through his characteristically intense harmonic language.

Io tacerò is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Second Book of Madrigals in 1594. Its text concerns silence, suffering, and concealed emotional pain, themes Gesualdo expresses through close interaction between words and harmony. The piece uses chromatic movement, disso...

Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo meaning 'Ah, I now grow pale,' employing chromaticism to portray emotional pallor within his six-book madrigal series (1594–1611).

“Dolce spirto d'Amore” is an Italian secular madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, the late Renaissance composer and Prince of Venosa. Written for five unaccompanied voices and associated with his second book of madrigals, it belongs to the repertory through which Gesualdo developed his intensely expressive t...

Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo setting 'Love, what must I do,' a text also composed by Monteverdi, illustrating the shared poetic sources of late Renaissance Italian composers.

Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo setting a text depicting a weary lady at rest, rendered with the chromatic intensity and expressive dissonance characteristic of his style.

Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo (c.1566–1613), a Neapolitan prince-composer renowned for extreme chromaticism and dissonance across six books of madrigals published 1594–1611.

Baci soavi e cari is a five-voice Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his first book of madrigals in 1594. Its text addresses sweet, cherished kisses and connects the sensations of kissing with the conventional poetic pairing of love and death. The work belongs to Gesualdo's earlier pub...

"Dolcissima mia vita" is an Italian madrigal by the late Renaissance composer Carlo Gesualdo, published in his fifth book of madrigals in 1611. The piece is heavily celebrated for its lush chromaticism, extreme dissonances, and affective text-setting, which are the hallmarks of Gesualdo's mature com...

Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo expressing joy as the sky brightens with the speaker's happiness, offering a relatively serene contrast within his otherwise intensely chromatic output.

"Mercè, grido piangendo" is a five-voice madrigal composed by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fifth Book of Madrigals in 1611. The piece is characteristic of Gesualdo’s late-Renaissance style, heavily utilizing extreme chromaticism, unexpected modal shifts, and jarring dissonant harmonies. These un...

Carlo Gesualdo's First Book of Madrigals (1594) comprises five-voice secular works that, while more conventional than his later books, already show the expressive chromaticism for which he became famous.

"O dolorosa gioia" is an Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fifth Book of Madrigals (1611) for five voices. It sets a text exploring the paradox of painful joy, and exemplifies Gesualdo's mature style with its extremes of chromaticism, sudden harmonic shifts, and intense word-paint...

“Luci serene e chiare” is an Italian madrigal by Carlo Gesualdo, published in his Fourth Book of Madrigals in 1596. The poem addresses the beloved’s serene, bright eyes and describes their power over the speaker through paired images of pleasure, pain, life, and death. Gesualdo emphasizes these emot...

From Gesualdo's sixth book (1611), among his final published madrigals, showcasing his most advanced and uncompromising chromatic harmonic language.

Madrigal from Gesualdo's Third Book (1595), marking an intensification of his characteristic style with abrupt harmonic shifts deployed to mirror extremes of poetic sentiment.