Carlo Gesualdo (1566-1613) is one of the most fascinating composers - it is hard to escape the temptation of seeing in his madrigals the tortured reflection of his psyche.

Beginning with the murder he committed in 1590, when he caught his first wife Maria dAvalos in blatant adultery with her lover Fabrizio Carafa, the madrigals of the fifth and sixth books are to Gesualdo what the black paintings are to Goya: works conceived in a state of solitude, with no limits on the artists imagination, born in enclosed spaces and used to moving around in their gloom.

Gesualdos sixth book of madrigals contains some of the most extraordinary harmonic thinking in the history of Western music it lives on the edge of modality, its chromatic lines forming chord progressions that still sound fresh and unpredictable to modern ears.