Gesualdo, Carlo

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Gesualdo, Carlo, Prince of Venosa, c.1560-1613, Italian composer. Gesualdo's later madrigals are striking for their time in their harmonic and dramatic boldness. They are contained in the last two (1611) of his six published books of madrigals. Gesualdo was a flamboyant personality: he had many love affairs, and his first wife and her lover were murdered at his order.

See studies by C. Gray and P. Heseltine (1926, repr. 1971) and G. Watkins (1973).