Carlo Gesualdo (1560-1613)
Prologue, Se la mia morte brami (Livre VI)
Engouement
Amour vécu
Séparation
Jalousie
Rage
Epilogue , Resta di darmi noia (Livre VI)

Ensemble La Dolce Maniera
Luigi Gaggero, direction

Dolcissimo Veleno, a lyric journey of love, from meeting to separation, woven with the masterworks of Gesualdo da Venosa (1566-1613). La Dolce Maniera presents with Dolcissimo Veleno a CD dedicated to Carlo Gesualdo da Venosa (1566-1613), an emblematic figure of the end of the Renaissance. Prince of the highest order, passionate about hunting and music, unfortunately famous for having brutally murdered his wife and her lover, Gesualdo is also considered as one of the most revolutionary composers of musical history. If the music of Monteverdi, his contemporary, is mostly like theater, Gesualdo does not represent the tragedy of human existence but, on the contrary, he experiences it, painting it with incredible violence, both on a personal level (the experience of love and death) and on a metaphysical one. The oxymorons and the contrasts constantly present in his music (“sad joy”, “day of darkness”) are not in fact simple accidents, but constitutive contradictions of human existence : there is no dolcezza (sweetness, tenderness, pleasure, joy) without veleno (venom, poison, yearning and suffering), as shadows would not exist without the light. And it is precisely in accepting this inevitably contradictory dimension of the human condition that one finds the tragic expressed so well by the work of Gesualdo. Gesualdo published six books of madrigals between 1594 and 1611. La Dolce Maniera, to provide a complete view of the ensemble of his profane works, has put at least one madrigal from each book into its program composed of 20 madrigals which make up a romantic song cycle.