# Albert Einstein was a fan of Gesualdo i read this somewhere!



## deprofundis (Apr 25, 2014)

He said a lot of thing on his madrigals, he said he was a genieous of genieous he dewlved into other music, but from what i recall he done a thesis on italian madrigal: site Gesualdo Monteverdi and Palestrina as greatest renaissannce composer if i'm accurated.


That about it folks please do your research i wont to know exactly what Einstein thought of classical music like Renaissance Gesualdo, bbbaroque, modern music,, & gregorian?


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

That was the musicologist Alfred Einstein not Albert, who regretted he did not have more time to enjoy the music he loved. Alfred wrote a book on the Italian madrigal and maintained that Gesualdo's harmonies induced a feeling akin to seasickness. Einstein thought that Gesualdo must have discovered his modulations composing at the keyboard (specifically, one of Vicentino's legendary archicembalos), and that this practice was wicked; as Charles Rosen puts it, "perhaps even comparable to Gesualdo's notorious engagement of hired assassins to kill his wife and her lover instead of doing the job honorably himself." During his lifetime Monteverdi was attacked for the same crime; he was said to have discovered his dissonances at the keyboard.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> "perhaps even comparable to Gesualdo's notorious engagement of hired assassins to kill his wife and her lover instead of doing the job honorably himself."


Is that how it happened? I always heard he caught them red handed and murdered them on the spot.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

flamencosketches said:


> Is that how it happened? I always heard he caught them red handed and murdered them on the spot.


It's a theme with variations. Here are some accounts I've read:

"When Gesualdo was twenty, a marriage was arranged for him with Maria d'Avalos from Naples. Maria was a much-coveted match, and an alliance between the Gesualdo and d'Avalos families was considered a powerful advantage. However, Maria embarked on an affair lasting several years with the young Duke Fabrizio Carafa. When this was revealed, it was Gesualdo's aristocratic duty to avenge it with murder. A hired assassin murdered Carafa, while Gesualdo killed his wife with his own hands."

"As they lay in bed, hired assassins stabbed Gesualdo's wife and her lover."

"Gesualdo literally got away with murder in 1590. Not with his own hands; a Renaissance prince hired people for his dirty work. But he arranged for not only the murder but also the mutilation of his adulterous wife, Maria d'Avalos, and her lover, Fabrizio Carafa."

"But Gesualdo learned of the affair and hired a group of assassins."

"Gesualdo's work and life were strongly affected by a sensational crime he committed on October 16, 1590, when on discovering his wife Donna Maria d'Avalos with her lover, the Duke of Andria, Gesualdo brutally stabbed the pair in the Palazzo San Severo in Naples and dragged the bodies into the street for public viewing."

Take your pick!


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Grisly stuff in any case. Man's inhumanity to man never changes, I guess. 

Is anyone familiar with his music? I can't say I've heard a note of it, but Renaissance is not my first preference.


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## josquindesprez (Aug 20, 2017)

There are several Gesualdo fans around here. I'm partial to the Responsoria, which is a bit haunting-sounding, with some sublime moments. The madrigals aren't so much my thing, but others on here certainly appreciate them a lot. Brilliant composer, no doubt, but yeah, not a very nice person it seems.


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

I've looked past a lot of "flaws" with some (or many) other composers but I have to draw a line somewhere... for example despite Wagner's undeniable massive genius I find it difficult to listen to his music due to his extremely antisemitic words. Not sure where I stand on murder, especially in this case. I guess when I explore deeper into the music of the renaissance I'll end up giving his music a shot.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

josquindesprez said:


> There are several Gesualdo fans around here. I'm partial to the Responsoria, which is a bit haunting-sounding, with some sublime moments. The madrigals aren't so much my thing, but others on here certainly appreciate them a lot. Brilliant composer, no doubt, but yeah, not a very nice person it seems.


Those responsoria for me are the most challenging music! I can't listen to one motet after another, it's too much, for me it's a great help to hear them with chant breaking them up. The only recording I really can say I like is this one -- if I listen to it I mix in some chant from Parrott or Cera.









I'm going to hear Bjorn Schmelzer's singers sing some of them in April in Paris -- wish me luck, it may be quite a challenge


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

flamencosketches said:


> I've looked past a lot of "flaws" with some (or many) other composers but I have to draw a line somewhere... for example despite Wagner's undeniable massive genius I find it difficult to listen to his music due to his extremely antisemitic words. Not sure where I stand on murder, especially in this case. I guess when I explore deeper into the music of the renaissance I'll end up giving his music a shot.


There may be some other composers who held anti jewish views, indeed expressed it in their music, Luther wasn't very charitable about jews who didn't convert so composers who were Lutherans had a tendency in that direction.

As it happens I always think that Wagner's music is pretty nice to jewish people -- Wotan is a jew really -- wondering jew.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

A few of Albert Einstein's musical views can be read here.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

KenOC said:


> A few of Albert Einstein's musical views can be read here.


so he did not like Beethoven, Brahms and despised Wagner :lol:
I wonder what he thought of Schoenberg and Messiaen, because he no doubt lived to experience them


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

KenOC said:


> A few of Albert Einstein's musical views can be read here.


"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I see my life in terms of music... I get most joy in life out of music." --Albert Einstein, 1929

I recall reading that Mozart's sister remarked that had her brother not been a composer he would have become a mathematician. Which leads me to wonder, had Wolfy turned his genius to equations, would we have had the theories of Relativity some hundred years or so earlier?

E=mc²

Einstein = Mozart (as a) Composer (square)

Perhaps Mozart's equation would read as follows:

M=ec²


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

SONNET CLV said:


> ...Which leads me to wonder, had Wolfy turned his genius to equations, would we have had the theories of Relativity some hundred years or so earlier?


Doubtful. The theory of relativity resulted not from mathematical artistry but from the contemplation of inexplicable observational results, results unknown in Mozart's time.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Doubtful. The theory of relativity resulted not from mathematical artistry but from the contemplation of inexplicable observational results, results unknown in Mozart's time.


It is unclear if Einstein even knew of the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. And even if he did, the results were not instrumental in his devising of STR. I read that it was rather some thought experiments that haunted him since puberty. And the STR was almost discovered by Lorentz before Einstein - that is why the Lorentz transformations are named after him. He only failed to connect some dots. If it were not for Einstein, someone else would have discovered the theory in a couple of years. It is the GTR that is his greater achievement.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I wonder what he thought of Schoenberg and Messiaen, because he no doubt lived to experience them


Schönberg gave a lecture at Princeton in 1934 where he first met Einstein. According to the composer's grandson, E. Randol Schoenberg, Einstein later told his secretary that he deemed the twelve tone method "crazy".


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> Schönberg gave a lecture at Princeton in 1934 where he first met Einstein. According to the composer's grandson, E. Randol Schoenberg, Einstein later told his secretary that he deemed the twelve tone method "crazy".


I would have guessed at something like that  I guess Feynman the bongos player would be more open to this sort of musical experience  (though I have no idea if he even listened to classical music)


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Jacck said:


> It is unclear if Einstein even knew of the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiment. And even if he did, the results were not instrumental in his devising of STR.


True. At the least, Einstein later denied that the Michelson-Morley experiment influenced his thinking WRT special relativity.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Jacck said:


> I wonder what he thought of Schoenberg and Messiaen, because he no doubt lived to experience them





RICK RIEKERT said:


> Schönberg gave a lecture at Princeton in 1934 where he first met Einstein. According to the composer's grandson, E. Randol Schoenberg, Einstein later told his secretary that he deemed the twelve tone method "crazy".


If Einstein thought the twelve tone method "crazy", I wonder what his opinion of John Cage and aleatory music was? Perhaps it was Einstein who said: "God does not play dice; but John Cage does, when he composes."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

SONNET CLV said:


> If Einstein thought the twelve tone method "crazy", I wonder what his opinion of John Cage and aleatory music was? Perhaps it was Einstein who said: "God does not play dice; but John Cage does, when he composes."


He would have hated it  Einstein never accepted the fundamental randomnes and indeterminacy of the quantum world. That is the reason why he became increasingly alienated from the younger generation of physicists who embraced it. And it is generally thought that he wasted the last 30 years of his life because of it.


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