Gesualdo The Man and His Music [Paperback]

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 loverin 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.

Praise for the first edition: Watkins's book is not only a model biography and examination of the secular and liturgical music, but a mine of scholarly finds and intuitions. --The New York Times Book Review

This splendid volume written with rare sensitivity and intelligence, opens the door to a greater understanding of the significance of a misunderstood genius. --Journal of the American Musicological Society