Diary of a degenerate: mapping the music and the madness of Carlo Gesualdo
The Renaissance composer wrote hauntingly sublime music – and committed a grisly double murder before descending even further into psychosis. As a new stage work revisits his life, its director asks if art can be separated from artist
TL;DR
- Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, was a late Renaissance composer known for his dark music and for murdering his wife and her lover.
- Gesualdo's life was marked by personal suffering, ritualistic agony, and accusations of witchcraft within his household.
- A new musical theater piece, 'Death of Gesualdo,' by an unnamed author, explores the composer's life and art, opening at St Martin-in-the-Fields.
- The author argues that art is often separate from the artist, citing examples like Wagner, Picasso, and J.K. Rowling.
- The article questions the appropriateness of celebrating a murderer's art in the current era of celebrity culture and intense public scrutiny.
- Gesualdo's music, characterized by dissonance and chromaticism, is seen as a synthesis with his life, an 'aural diary of a degenerate.'
- The article suggests that Gesualdo's 'honour' killing was legally permissible for an Italian prince of his time.
- The author concludes that punishing odiousness by erasing art is the wrong lesson, and that audiences should not over-consume an artist's suffering.