My Heart Cannot Die

At the centre of the historical imagination surrounding madrigal culture stands Carlo Gesualdo (1566–1613), renowned for his chromatic complexity and infamous for the murder of his then-wife Maria d’Avalos and her lover in 1590. For centuries, the work of this ‘prince of darkness’ was viewed through a romantic lens, as the expression of a tormented genius: isolated, anguished, and musically visionary.

In this hybrid collaborative project, BL!NDMAN and Zwerm demystify and nuance the image of this ‘brilliant Renaissance composer’. Gesualdo is not commemorated as a tragic individual, but as a talented aristocrat operating within a patriarchal network of power, violence, and privilege—contrasting with the often marginalised voices of his female contemporaries such as Maddalena Casulana (1544–1590) and Vittoria Aleotti (1575–1620).

To this day, 16th-century madrigals remain strongly shaped by vocal interpretations. BL!NDMAN [hybrid] and Zwerm offer a new, contemporary perspective on this historical performance practice. Both the music and the textual adaptation are freely interpreted from an eclectically assembled setup.

With My Heart Cannot Die, BL!NDMAN [hybrid] and Zwerm spark a debate encouraging reflection on our perception of women within a patriarchal society. A society that existed during the Renaissance and continues to influence how we view composers from that era and, by extension, our own. At the same time, the quartets engage with nuance in the musical oeuvre of a murderer who also contributed beautiful madrigals to the world.