Don carlo gesualdo biography of nancy johnson

Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa between 8 March and 30 March — 8 September was an Italian nobleman and composer.

Composers beginning with o

Though both the Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza , he is better known for writing madrigals and pieces of sacred music that use a chromatic language not heard again until the late 19th century. He is also known for killing his first wife and her aristocratic lover upon finding them in flagrante delicto. Gesualdo's family had acquired the principality of Venosa , in what is now the Province of Potenza , Southern Italy, in His mother was the niece of Pope Pius IV.

Carlo was most likely born at Venosa, then part of the Kingdom of Naples , but little else is known about his early life. There he was placed under the protection of his uncle Alfonso d. Abandoning the prospect of an ecclesiastical career, [ citation needed ] , he married, in , his first cousin, Donna Maria d'Avalos, [ 2 ] the daughter of Carlo d'Avalos, prince of Montesarchio and Sveva Gesualdo.

Gesualdo had a musical relationship with Pomponio Nenna , though whether it was student-to-teacher, or colleague-to-colleague, is uncertain. The day after the killing, a delegation of Neapolitan officials inspected the room in Gesualdo's apartment where the killings had taken place, and interrogated witnesses. The delegation's report did not lack in gruesome details, including the mutilation of the corpses and, according to the witnesses, Gesualdo going into the bedroom a second time "because he wasn't certain yet they were dead".

The Gran Corte della Vicaria found Gesualdo had not committed a crime. About a year after the gruesome end of his first marriage, [ citation needed ] Gesualdo's father died and he thus became the third Prince of Venosa and eighth Count of Conza. After returning to his castle at Gesualdo from Ferrara in , he set up a situation similar to the one that existed in Ferrara, with a group of resident virtuoso musicians who would sing his own music.

The relationship between Gesualdo and his new wife was not good; she accused him of abuse, and the Este family attempted to obtain a divorce. She spent more and more time away from the isolated estate. Gesualdo wrote many angry letters to Modena where she often went to stay with her brother.