As a composer of that most divine musical form, the madrigal, few excel the Renaissance master, Carlo Gesualdo. His unconventional chromatic excursions were studied and experimented with by Liszt and Wagner centuries later, when Wagner’s reknowned “extended chromaticism” was about to give birth to atonal twelve tone music. Gesualdo was remarkable for both the sensual character of his secular works and the edifying qualities of his sacred material, as well as being over 200 years ahead of his time in certain aspects of theoretical practice. He was also a passionately vicious murderer.

The Gesualdos were feudal landholders with castles in Gesualdo and Venosa, as well as a palace in Naples. In 1584, Carlo’s elder brother died without an heir; since Carlo was the remaining male of his family, the responsibility of continuing the family line fell upon his shoulders. Within a year the young duke had obtained papal permission and married his first cousin, the lovely Donna Maria d’Avalos. She was several years older than her new husband and already twice married. Because of the arranged nature of her marriage, perhaps she failed to take her vows seriously and was soon involved in an extramarital affair with Fabrizio Carafa, the Duke of Andria.

Carlo was no fool though, and in 1590 devised a clever trap. He left on an overnight hunting excursion only to return unexpectedly, catching his wife and her lover “in flagrante delicto di fragrante peccato”. The reports of his revenge range from Carlo shooting them several times and then hacking them with his sword (including maiming their genitals), to having the actual deed performed by his servants while he relished the act as an observer. This was, however, not enough. He had for some time entertained the notion that his and Maria’s son looked a lot more like the Duke of Andria than it did the Prince of Venosa. He had the baby hung in its cradle from a high ceiling and literally rocked to death.

Incredibly, Gesualdo did not attempt a cover-up; he even went so far as to have the bodies displayed in public! Probably due to his nobility, he was never prosecuted. He did leave Naples, but more out of a fear of revenge from the various families involved than from shame.

He retired to his estates in Gesualdo, where he remained for the rest of his life. A scant four years after his nefarious deed, he remarried to Leonora d’Este, a niece of the Duke of Ferrara (and a brave girl I would think).

The scandalous nature of these murders has made Maria the subject of many “the fate of Maria d’Avalos” poems and songs over the years and has even inspired a recent opera, “Gesualdo” by Russian composer Alfred Schnittke, which premiered in 1995.