– Gesualdo
accomplished composer, the madrigals from his third and fourth books show
independence from courtly patronage allowed Gesualdo to follow his own instincts
in composition without having to answer to anyone but himself. Because he had
no patron dictating which texts he should set (and also because he probably never
to satisfy his growing desire for creativity; these texts were often much darker and
more angst-ridden. From his Terzo libro di madrigali, published in 1595, comes Del bel
de’ bei vostri occhi, a text whose author is unknown. Pushed far beyond the quirkiness
of form in “Bella Angioletta,” here we also encounter the extreme chromaticism (as
on “Lasso, ne mort è già” – “alas, it cannot die”) and jarring harmonic shifts that we
associate with Gesualdo, the mature (perhaps insane) composer.
Del bel de’ bei vostri occhi Once this soul lived
visse questa alma un tempo, on the beauty of your fair eyes,
hor che ne è priva now that it is deprived of it
qual più virtù l'avviva? what other virtue will sustain?
Lasso, ne mort'è già
che il mio tormento for my torment
viv'in lei, viv'io sento. lives in her, and so I live.
Cibo Amor le ministra Love nourishes it
onde non pera, that it may not perish,
vive di quel che spera. but live instead on hope.
– Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)
Edvard Hagerup Grieg stands as the greatest composer in the history of Norwegian
music, a distinction he had already clinched during his lifetime. Born in the
North Sea port of Bergen, he left Norway at the age of 15 to enroll at the Leipzig
Conservatory. Following his conservatory studies, he spent a period of time in
Copenhagen, the most cosmopolitan musical city in Scandinavia. While there, Grieg
developed a friendship with Rikard Nordraak, the composer of the Norwegian
national anthem. Nordraak’s obsession with the sagas, fjords and music of their
homeland inspired Grieg to believe that a distinctly Norwegian national music was
possible. Immediately following Nordraak’s death in 1866, Grieg relocated to Oslo,
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