Musical Mysteries: From Mozart to John Lennon

4 Carlo Gesualdo: Murder and Madrigals

50 · Musical Mysteries 50 4 Carlo Gesualdo: Murder and Madrigals Igor Stravinsky has pointed out that Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (1566–1613), may not have been the first murderer among composers of the Italian Renaissance. In 1570 Massimo Troiano, a poet, singer, and composer, was suspected of involvement, together with another singer, in the murder of a string player, Battista Romano, near Munich. Troiano and the other singer sought by the authorities fled Bavaria to avoid arrest. On April 27, 1570, Prince Wilhelm of Bavaria wrote (in Latin) to Duke Alfonso of Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio soliciting his aid in apprehending the wanted men: “Two days ago two of our musicians, one Camillo of Parma, the other Massimo Troiano of Naples, who a little before, for no significant cause, conceived hatred against another musician of ours who was outstanding in his art, Battista romano; and having followed him outside the walls of the town of Landeshut where we are accustomed to reside , suddenly caught sight of him. Each of them fired his weapon at him and one of them lethally wounded the poor fellow.” Prince Wilhelm asked Duke Alfonso to do his best to arrest the malefactors, whose descriptions were attached to the letter. Troiano was identified as of middle height with a short reddish beard and speaking in Neapolitan dialect; in “all his words and manners he showed arrogance and haughtiness.” since Troiano never reappeared, his culpability cannot be determined with assurance. However, even if Gesualdo should be regarded as having been second to enter italian music’s murder annals, he far surpassed his predecessor in fame as musician and murderer. Carlo Gesualdo: Murder and Madrigals · 51 The Gesualdo tragedy was the appalling outcome of a falsely glittering marriage. on the death of his elder brother Luigi in 1585, Carlo, second of two sons, became heir to the Gesualdo family’s titles and properties. To ensure the continuity of his line, Carlo’s father, Fabrizio, arranged a wedding the following year between Carlo and his twice-widowed first cousin, Donna Maria d’Avalos. Both spouses could boast distinguished ancestry. The Norman noblemen of Gesualdo (taking the family name from a village east of Naples) traced from the eleventh century; Don Carlo’s mother, Girolama Borromeo, was a sister of Carlo Borromeo (who became a cardinal in 1560 and was canonized in 1610) and a niece of Pope Pius IV. Donna maria’s father was Don Carlo d’Avalos, Prince of montesarchio, and her mother was Donna sveva Gesualdo, her bridegroom’s aunt. Donna maria ’s two previous husbands, whom she had wed in 1575 and 1580, respectively , were Federigo Carafa, marchese of san Lucido (with whom she had two children, one surviving only a few months after his birth), and a sicilian , Alfonso Gioeni, son of the marchese di Giulianova. An insensitive chronicler speculated that Carafa’s early death was perhaps due to excessive indulgence in sexual intercourse with his wife. musicologist Cecil Gray writes of Donna Maria, who was only twenty-five when she embarked on her third and final marriage: “All contemporary chronicles are agreed on one point, namely, the ‘surprising beauty’ of Donna Maria, one of them even going so far as to say that she was reputed to be the most beautiful woman in the kingdom of the Two sicilies. This may seem to us somewhat excessive praise if the portrait of her in the picture . . . of the Carafa family in the church of San Domenico Maggiore at Naples is at all like her.” The first few years of the marriage between Don Carlo and Donna Maria seemed successful, at least from the viewpoint of the Gesualdo family patriarch, because the grandson for whom he had hoped and planned, Emmanuele , was born. Before long, however, the marriage turned a dangerous corner. The events that led Carlo and Maria to catastrophe are chronicled in an early Italian account, known as the Corona Manuscript, which, in its most complete form, has been translated into English by Glenn Watkins in his Gesualdo: The Man and His Music. The authors of the manuscript place the blame for the tragedy squarely on uncontrolled female desire: “How much ruin lust has brought to the world is evident for the pages of writers are filled with it, and there is no doubt whatsoever that it brings along with it all sorts of evils and discords, and weakens the body and does harm [3.138.105.31] Project MUSE (2024-04...