Gesualdo

[french frank]

Not on TEMS but on The Choir, Sunday 31 March at 5pm: a focus on the music rather than the life ... (it suggests) ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks for the alert, FF.

Yes, the music. What's interesting about Gesualdo is that, after him, harmony seemed to go backwards, while musical evolution concentrated on other things, like dramatic contrast by other than harmonic means, instrumental colour, counterpoint and then sonata development, and didn't really catch up again until Chopin.

I wonder if something similar has been taking place since about 1975 around which time most mainstream modern composers ditched atonality, serialism, stochasm etc.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Thanks for the alert, FF.

Yes, the music. What's interesting about Gesualdo is that, after him, harmony seemed to go backwards, while musical evolution concentrated on other things, like dramatic contrast by other than harmonic means, instrumental colour, counterpoint and then sonata development, and didn't really catch up again until Chopin.

I wonder if something similar has been taking place since about 1975 around which time most mainstream modern composers ditched atonality, serialism, stochasm etc.

This seems to be a regular pattern in Music History since the Renaissance - the Florentine Camerata simplifying the polyphonic writing of previous composers; Bach's sons reacting against the elaborate contrapuntal writing of their father; Rossini following Beethoven; Neo-Classicism following Mahler; Reich following Stockhausen.

[jean]

But surely Gesualdo was never so mainstream that subsequent composers could be said to be reacting against him?

(Though some of Lassus's chromatic stuff has similarities.)

[Serial_Apologist]

But surely Gesualdo was never so mainstream that subsequent composers could be said to be reacting against him?

(Though some of Lassus's chromatic stuff has similarities.)

I agree jean - Lassus and Gesualdo were "just" part of a rich tapestry of new ideas at the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque - a very uneven process that arguably unfolded over a period of about 50 years - William Lawes being another. I would say Gesualdo was "overlooked", whereas CPE Bach and others consciously reacted against JS Bach's contrapuntalism.

[ardcarp]

I just love these 'trends' in musical history which hindsight gives us the ability to discern!

On the subject of Gesualdo

after him, harmony seemed to go backwards

...well, not really. He was just freaky. I think lots of composers have toyed with 'dissonance that breaks the rules'. Byrd's 'Come woeful Orpheus' is an example. Purcell's harmonic language could be said to be eccentric set against the European norm. But I don't think Gesualdo's experimentalism can be seen as part of any sort of spectrum of musical evolution.

IMO one of the finest groups in the UK to perform his music is Exaudi. Here's a review of a concert they gave last year;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalconcertreviews/9626338/Exaudi-Wigmore-Hall-review.html

Interesting that Exaudi, under the inspired direction of James Weeks, speialises in tackling challenging contemporary work. They've spent time at IRCAM, have done a lot of John Cage (including his 'Song Book'), so it's interesting that Gesualdo fires them up too.

[BBMmk2]

Ah, thank you FF!I will be looking forward toi this!!