In the context of Il Perdono di Gesualdo, explain the Resonances in Gesualdo’s oeuvre of the Painting and music.
Among the collections of religious music published in Naples in 1603, the book of Sacrae Cantiones for six voices contains a single motet for seven voices, Illumina nos, conclusion and culmination of the work, “composed with a singular artifice” (singualari artificio compositae):For the American musicologist, this piece sheds a new light on the Mary Magdalene who appears in the Perdono: “The seven devils of Mary Magdalene? Sevenfold Grace? Seven-voice counter-point?” In a letter dated June 3, 1957, addressed to Robert Craft with a view of recording the three motets recomposed by Stravinsky under the title Tres Sacrae Cantiones (Da Pacem Domine, Assumpta est Maria and Illumina nos), the composer Ernst Krenek emphasizes how “In the tradition of the Church, the Holy Ghost has always been associated with the figure ‘seven’ [...] The source of it seems to be Isaiah XI, 2, where the ‘seven gifts’ are attributed to the Spirit of the Lord.”Moreover, Glenn Watkins suggests that the motet Assumpat est Maria can be read as a musical equivalent to the representation of the Virgin who, surrounded by cherubs, sits to the right of Christ in the Perdono di Gesualdo.The subtleties of harmony and counterpoint in Gesualdo’s musical language, the expressive dissonances and chromaticisms, the very conscious use of word painting and of symbolic numbers in his religious pieces, “Such a collection of codes […] paves the way for a more intensive examination of the Passion message” halfway between liturgy and multimedia.In fact, Glenn Watkins suggests another parallel between Gesualdo's religious music and the Perdono of 1609 from a close reading of the title page of Tenebrae Resposoria (or “Responsory to Darkness for Holy Week”), published in 1611 by Giovanni Giacomo Carlino in Gesualdo's palace:“Here, uniquely in his lifetime, the Prince of Venosa not only signed his work with his name but implicitly signalled the connection of its contents to the worlds of music, literature, and art. And art? Clearly this music and text were specifically intended to be sung in a location involving two extremely personal commissions, one each of architecture and of painting: the church of Santa Maria delle Grazie and the altarpiece, Il perdono.”
Mary Magdalene Robert Craft Glenn Watkins Responsory altarpiece Ernst Krenek Gesualdo Stravinsky Venosa