The cruel double murder of his first wife and her lover made Don Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa (1566-1613), one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of music, whose work is almost obscured by the bloody drama of jealousy. The Sixth Book of Madrigals, published two years before his death, is, so to speak, the grand finale of a unique madrigal oeuvre to which the striking label of "mannerism" seems, for once, to be attached justifiably: the dissonances are in places almost painful, the word settings so colourful and varied in their imagery that there is an almost startling Modernity. The technical demand is so high that that so far only a few ensembles have dared to make a complete recording.