Carlo Gesualdo e i poeti di Ferrara: fedeltà infedele al testo poetico

The essay proposes a rereading of the Gesualdo’s corpus poetico in order to individuate which poetic texts he prefers, and how he put them in music. In the first two books of Madrigali in five voices, Carlo Gesualdo looks at the Ferrarese poetry, in particular that of Tasso.

The choices of Gesualdo and the cuts he makes – also in very famous poems – show his intolerance for jokes and too much explicit metaphors, and his desire to obtain more epigrammatic texts.

Beginning from the third book Gesualdo confront himself with Luzzaschi, on the new poetics of strict correspondance between text and music: the poetic madrigal is transformed, contracting into an epigrammatic and monothematic sense, overburding itself with ossimora and violent contrasts. By this time Guarini is outstanding, or, to be more precise, poetical materials of Guarini, original or adapted by known (Ridolfo Arlotti, Alessandro Guarini) or unknown persons, without ruling out the participation of the same Gesualdo.

The result is a poetical canzoniere of short madrigals extremely joint and coherent for the reproposition of key-words and of analogues sintagma that resound from end to end of the canzoniere.