Who was Carlo Gesualdo and what are tenebrae?
Tenebrae (Latin for ‘darkness’) services signify a Medieval liturgical tradition, still extant in some Western churches, that accompanies the Wednesday and following evenings of Holy Week and the commemoration of Christ’s crucifixion. Candles lit at the beginning of the service are extinguished one by one until the sanctuary is drenched in darkness by the end of the readings and music. (The service is depicted in the film, Tous les Matins du Monde (‘All the Mornings of the World’). Numerous composers have written deeply lachrymose cycles for the related evenings, notably the Baroque Frenchmen Franois Couperin and Marc-Antoine Charpentier. In the height of the Italian Renaissance, Carlo Gesulado (1560-1613) was celebrated as much for his music as for having had his adulterous wife Maria d’Avalos and her lover (whom he discovered ‘in the act’) murdered and pierced through with a single sword, their bodies strewn on his castle’s steps. Later, he had a son (
