The Transmutation Of The Style

This thesis is a research on the Italian Renaissance madrigal composer Gesualdo andhis six volumes of five-voice madirgal，the author aims to ifnd the reason whicheffected the transformation of the madrigal style based on the analysis of the musicelements.Gesualdo, as the Pirnce of Venosa in Naples, had a quite rough life. He had killed hiswife and her lover since the wife’s unfaith. And then a marirage for covered the dutyof family brought him an opportunity to enjoy the most avant-grade arts atmospheresin Ferrara, where a place had a flourish culture and music. But in his late life, he hadto suffer the divorcement and other alffiction. All the above had influenced Gesualdocomposition more or less，so the author introduced his legendary life in the Chapter I.Gesualdo composed six volume of five-voice madrigal in his life, which can bedivided into three periods as their styles. The Chapter II, III，IV discussed these threepeirod madrigal respectively. In Chapter II，the author discussed the two earlyvolumes of Ges’ualdos madrigal. In this peirod, Gesualdo composed as a student,imitation was the major feature of this time, but it is obvious that based on the controlof the countpoint technique, Gesualdo began to integrate some his own idea into thecomposition. In Chapter III was on the most favourite two volume madrigals ofGesualdo. In these two volume madrigals, the author introduced the new feature ofth’ese works，and then to interpret how Gesualdo borrowed the other composerstechniques and mixed his own concept to express the content of the lyirc. In ChapterIV, the author discovered the music elements in the last two volumes madirgal, suchas unprepared chord，melodical interval, suspension and the chromaticism，etc. Uponthese analysis, the author proved that since the accumulating in the earlyperiod，Gesualdo had developed his late style which contained new music feature.