GESUALDO DA VENOSA, Carlo 1566-1613

Madrigal a 5 Voix Composè Par le Prince de Venosa Charles Gesualdo [Moro e mentre sospiro]. Musical manuscript full score. Italy, late 18th century

Oblong folio (222 x 282 mm). Contemporary carta rustica. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 7, [i] blank pp. Notated in black ink on 12-stave rastrum-ruled paper. With text of French title in manuscript within elaborate engraved border incorporating horticultural motifs and Greco-Roman-inspired busts of human figures wearing laurels in each corner, secondary title in Italian.

Together with:
MARENZIO, Luca 1553 or 1554-1599
The second part of Marenzio's madrigal "Fiume ch'à l'onde, Madrigal A 5 Voix Par Luque Marenzio." Oblong folio (222 x 282 mm). Heavy contemporary wrappers. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 7, [i] blank pp. Musical manuscript full score. Notated in black ink on 12-stave rastrum-ruled paper. Title within elaborate engraved border as above. With secondary title, in Italian: "Madrigale A cinque Voci Del Sig.[or] Luca Marenzio."

Wrappers worn and slightly soiled. Very minor worming throughout. In very good condition overall.

Gesualdo, particularly noted for his madrigals and sacred music employing a unique chromatic language, was infamous for his tumultuous personal history, which included the double-murder of his wife and her lover.

"It was Simone Molinaro (ca. 1570-after 1633) ... who made the major contribution towards the use of Gesualdo's music as an instructional model for free counterpoint, in the following decades and even centuries, by republishing the five-voice madrigals in score at Genoa (1613). No longer dispersed in partbooks, the music's vertical, harmonic counterpoint was now available for study, and later generations continued to be fascinated by it. Later Banchieri quoted Gesualdo as an example in Moderna pratica, and Domenico Mazzocchi also praised him; while G.B. Martini, in his contrapuntal wisdom, appraised the figurae and licences of two of his madrigals. Schütz, Frescobaldi, and Alessandro Scarlatti all spoke of their wonder both from the standpoint of a practical art and as one for study, while Francesco Geminiani claimed that he had ‘laid the foundation of his studies in the works of the Prince of Venosa’ (Hawkins 1776, 3: 221)." Lorenzo Bianconi, revised by Glenn Watkins in Grove Music Online

Marenzio, an Italian composer, "was one of the most prolific and wide-ranging madrigalists of the later 16th century, particularly notable for the detailed word-painting of his early works and the advanced harmonic expressiveness of his later ones." Steven Ledbetter, James Chater and Roland Jackson in Grove Music Online

Two valuable documents of early reception history for two of the most celebrated Italian madrigalists of the 16th century.

Item #39484

Price: $485.00  other currencies