Carlo Gesualdo

ca 1561 (Napoli) - 8 sep 1613 (Avelino)

Books about Carlo Gesualdo and his music

Glenn Watkins Gesualdo: The Man and His Music
University of North Carolina Press, 2009-10-14; ISBN 0807898066; 368 pages
Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, is equally celebrated as the composer of madrigals of great power and tortured complexity and as the murderer of his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto. His life and compositions are not unconnected. His neurotic sensibility found an ideal outlet in the mannerist tendencies of late Renaissance music, and his works are the most extreme examples of those tendencies. Watkins's extended study of Gesualdo's life and works was originally published in 1973. Alongside detailed analysis of Gesualdo's remarkable madrigals and of the few works in other genres, it contained much new biographical material, particularly on the latter part of the composer's life. This new edition has been extensively updated, and contains a new chapter covering the research of recent years. The preface to the first edition, by Igor Stravinsky is reprinted. Price indication: $ 27.76

Basil Howitt Love Lives of the Great Composers: From Gesualdo to Wagner
Sound and Vision, 1995; ISBN 0920151183; 288 pages
Basil Howitt delves into the love lives of a cluster of the great composers from Gesualdo to Wagner and finds much to delight, surprise, shock, and even appall his readers -- but never bore them! Price indication: $ 17.95

Giovanni; translated from the Italian by D.H. Lawrence Verga Mastro-don Gesualdo
Grove Press, 1955-01-01 Price indication: $ 3.90

Glenn Watkins Gesualdo: The Man and His Music (Clarendon Paperbacks)
Oxford University Press, 1991; ISBN 0198161972; 444 pages
Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, is equally celebrated as the composer of madrigals of great power and tortured complexity and as the murderer of his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto. His life and compositions are not unconnected. His neurotic sensibility found an ideal outlet in the mannerist tendencies of late Renaissance music, and his works are the most extreme examples of those tendencies. Watkins's extended study of Gesualdo's life and works was originally published in 1973. Alongside detailed analysis of Gesualdo's remarkable madrigals and of the few works in other genres, it contained much new biographical material, particularly on the latter part of the composer's life. This new edition has been extensively updated, and contains a new chapter covering the research of recent years. The preface to the first edition, by Igor Stravinsky is reprinted. Price indication: $ 55.00

S. Giora Shoham and Shlomo Giora Shoham Art, Crime and Madness: Gesualdo, Caravaggio, Genet, Van Gogh, Artaud
Sussex Academic Press, 2003; ISBN 1903900069; 209 pages
Art, Crime and Madness explores the relationship between creative innovation, deviance and morbidity. To innovate, one has to be able to view the medium and the object of creativity in a different, hitherto unexplored manner. The essence of art is creative innovation, coupled with an ability, in varying degrees, to transcend the boundaries of consciousness. But this 'ability' is also the prerogative of the mentally deranged. Likewise, the criminal and the deviant are more likely to transcend normative barriers while creating, hence the wide range of criminal and deviant behaviour in society. Although the inverse hypothesis does not hold - the mere existence of deviance or morbidity does not predispose the individual to creativity - nevertheless criminal and mad behaviour are often very innovative. This thesis is illustrated by historical case histories of creative deviance and genius madness, and contemporary observations. The painter Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio killed a man while still a teenager, and a second victim during a ball game. In his lifetime he was considered degenerate, but today he is considered the greatest painter of the Italian Settecento, and his portrait adorns the Hundred-Thousand Lira note. Jean Genet the homosexual thief was born out of wedlock and as a teenager he transgressed almost all the paragraphs of the French criminal code. But he became a famous French playwright, the mouthpiece for criminals and deviants. His plays built up a philosophical apology for the raison d'etre of the criminal group. Price indication: $ 24.95

Denis Morrier Gesualdo
Fayard, 2003; ISBN 2213614644; 120 pages Price indication: $ 15.99

Cecil Gray Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, Musician and Murderer
Reprint Services Corp, 1990-08; ISBN 0781290635
This account of Don Carlo fully illuminates his life as Prince of Venosa, as accused murderer, and as composer of extraordinary genius. Price indication: $ 120.41

Denis Arnold Gesualdo (BBC Music Guides)
British Broadcasting Corp., 1984; ISBN 0563179953; 56 pages Price indication: $ 8.91

Cecil Gray and Philip Heseltine Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa : Musician and Murderer
Greenwood Press Reprint, 1971; ISBN 0837139341; 145 pages
This account of Don Carlo fully illuminates his life as Prince of Venosa, as accused murderer, and as composer of extraordinary genius. Price indication: $ 38.50

S. Giora Shoham Art, Crime and Madness: Gesualdo, Caravaggio, Genet, Van Gogh, Artaud
Sussex Academic Press, 2003; ISBN 1903900050; 209 pages
Art, Crime and Madness explores the relationship between creative innovation, deviance and morbidity. To innovate, one has to be able to view the medium and the object of creativity in a different, hitherto unexplored manner. The essence of art is creative innovation, coupled with an ability, in varying degrees, to transcend the boundaries of consciousness. But this 'ability' is also the prerogative of the mentally deranged. Likewise, the criminal and the deviant are more likely to transcend normative barriers while creating, hence the wide range of criminal and deviant behaviour in society. Although the inverse hypothesis does not hold - the mere existence of deviance or morbidity does not predispose the individual to creativity - nevertheless criminal and mad behaviour are often very innovative. This thesis is illustrated by historical case histories of creative deviance and genius madness, and contemporary observations. The painter Michelangelo Merisi Caravaggio killed a man while still a teenager, and a second victim during a ball game. In his lifetime he was considered degenerate, but today he is considered the greatest painter of the Italian Settecento, and his portrait adorns the Hundred-Thousand Lira note. Jean Genet the homosexual thief was born out of wedlock and as a teenager he transgressed almost all the paragraphs of the French criminal code. But he became a famous French playwright, the mouthpiece for criminals and deviants. His plays built up a philosophical apology for the raison d'etre of the criminal group. Price indication: $ 60.98

Karin Wettig Satztechnische Studien an den Madrigalen Carlo Gesualdos (European university studies. Series XXXVI, Musicology)
P. Lang, 1990; ISBN 3631426062; 291 pages Price indication: $ 171.31

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