Languisce al fin

There are many legends and many variants about artists who have made a deal with the devil. Celebrated in the tale of Faust from Marlowe to Goethe to Thomas Mann, this scenario captivates for its conflict between ambition and penance, its supernaturalism, and its dangerous balance between the divine and the demonic. Tonight’s program considers the dark side of that equation. We all know many cases of composers, expressing a purer sensibility, who find deep inspiration in stories from religious history, their own spirituality, and abundant saintly examples of blessings in everyday life. Nevertheless, we should not overlook the cases in which darker impulses motivate great art.



The farthest we go back this evening is to the start of the 17th century, when the full flowering of Italian vocal composition had secured a place in the hearts of European music. One of the most popular forms was the madrigal, traditionally a texted, contrapuntal work for four to six voices. The madrigal’s origins may be traced to older vocal forms such as the frottola and chanson, but what sets it apart is the degree of expressivity and chromatic experimentation, its popular strain, and the quality of its poetry. Among its many practitioners—and arguably its most dynamic and adventurous voice—was Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613), Prince of Venosa. Any introductory tour of the madrigal stops to pay homage at Gesualdo’s door, for both his music and his life vivify the best and worst of boundless passion.
At his worst, Gesualdo was jealous and cruel, at times morose and depressed, and dabbled in mystical adoration of relics and occult objects. He killed his first wife and her lover when discovering them in flagrante, but he was acquitted—such was the time and such was his standing among the local aristocracy. In his music, Gesualdo made significant contributions to the elevation of text as the driver of a work’s expressive style. Taking Monteverdi’s innovations to their logical extreme, he dissected poetry for its affective heart, and then created radically new levels of dissonance and harmonic devices that could capture the power of deeply-felt emotions.
The five-voice madrigal Languisce al fin (1611) is representative. The opening gestures meander without clear tonal center, and falling chromatic semitones (such as F-sharp to F-natural) depict the “languishing toward death.” The anonymous poem abounds in “trigger words” like death, pain, cruel, and love. Note the sharp ascending chromatic motion on “afflict”, the splitting of the texture as the poet “departs” his beloved, the pesante falling lines toward the close. Periodic cadences do provide clarity, but in between those moments one is likely to feel disoriented—which was clearly Gesualdo’s intent. As Alex Ross noted in his 2011 New Yorker article, it is an open question “whether the life or the music perpetuates the phenomenon [of ‘Gesualdo fever’]. If Gesualdo had not committed such shocking acts, we might not pay such close attention to his music. But if he had not written such shocking music we would not care so much about his deeds.” Gesualdo’s hyperbolic musical style accords with a life spent dancing upon the razor’s edge between passion and obsession.

(c) Jason Stell