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Music

Can this year’s Gesualdo celebrations be about the music rather than the blood and gore?

The 16th century composer wrote some of the most alluring music ever written. But his psychopathic biography always overshadows this

2 January 2016

9:00 AM

2 January 2016

9:00 AM

The allure of Carlo Gesualdo, eighth Count of Conza and third Prince of Venosa, has been felt by music-lovers from the humblest madrigal singer to the likes of Stravinsky, Boulez and Werner Herzog. Now, just three years after celebrating the 400th anniversary of his death in 1613, his birth in 1566 gives us a second chance to remind ourselves of that heady mix of murder and chromaticism that so famously characterises his life and work.

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