--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozguru@...> wrote: > > On 04/15/2013 10:06 AM, authfriend wrote: > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <noozguru@> wrote: > > (snip) > >> And some of my serious composer friends say there were a > >> number of composers even earlier than that who dared to > >> break the rules and wrote modernist stuff centuries ago. > >> I think one might have been a nobleman who liked to write > >> music and the church didn't want to mess with him for > >> writing "songs of the devil." > > You may be thinking of Carlo Gesualdo (late 16th-early > > 17th century), a nobleman who brutally murdered his > > wife and her lover *in flagrante* and subsequently went > > insane. > > > > He wrote choral music, both religious and secular > > (mostly in madrigal form), and some instrumental music > > as well, that was full of very modern dissonance and > > modulation: > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AddtHVNpOKM > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whx643DqAV8 > > > > Wikipedia's Gesualdo entry has a wonderful quote from > > Alduous Huxley about listening to some of the composer's > > madrigals: > (snip quote) > > Thanks. I believe that was the composer my friend was > referring to. I see there was one TV movie based on him > "Death for Five Voices" that I may have seen too.
Yes, by Werner Herzog. A quasi-documentary. There are some clips from it on YouTube. > The "church" often banned the use of the flatted 5th > or tritone which was referred to as the "devil's interval". "Diabolus in musica." That it was "banned" is probably apocryphal, but it was definitely viewed (heard) with suspicion and generally avoided. > Modern diesel train engines use it for their horns.
