Omaggio a Gesualdo (2013) - For String Quintet

Recording Excerpt: Full Recording: Instrumentation For String Quintet Commissioned by the Chelsea Music Festival Program Note "Omaggio a Gesualdo" (2013) is inspired by Gesualdo's madrigal "Ahi, disperata vita" from Madrigali a cinque voci Libro terzo (1594). It uses Gesualdo's work as a model, recasting his gestures and musical motives in my own language, while loosely adhering to the form of his work. I have long been an admirer of Gesualdo's music, especially his use of harmony and jarring chord progressions that keep his work sounding as modern today as it did four hundred years ago. In revisiting Gesualdo's music for this homage, I noticed a kinship in Gesualdo's approach to harmony with my own – he frequently links distantly related chords in succession, while I frequently combine disparate chords in superimposition, creating new composite harmonies. My homage features these superimposed harmonies at the forefront. The music of Gesualdo’s madrigals are inseparable from the