A cinque voci is the sound composition that the Polisonum collective dedicates to the village of Gesualdo, a small thousand-year-old town in the heart of Irpinia that for five centuries welcomed the Norman dynasty of the Gesualdo. Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, is the figure to whom Polisonum’s research is aimed: visionary musician and composer, madrigalist with rare skills, he’s a complex figure and central to the history of musical experimentation.
A choir composed of soprano, mezzo soprano, alto, tenor and baritone perform the verse Ahi disperata vita, also the title of an opera by the composer Carlo Gesualdo, through eight chords that are intertwined in an unpredictable way. Polisonum actually asks the performers to hold each chord until they lose their breath, until the voice is consumed, goes out, and the breath finds space again for the emission of another sound.
In addition to the live performance during the opening on 27 June, a sound installation in the central tower of the Castel will reproduce a reduced version of it, twice a day, until the end of September.
Like a secular ritual that marks a daily passage through sound, it also lets a fragment of history escape into the wind from the castle walls. The sound installation also consists of three long white drapes that emerge from the balcony of the tower: moved by the wind or immobile, agitated, calm, they are as unpredictable as our own breath.