Following the success of their recordings of madrigals by Monteverdi, Paul Agnew and Les Arts Florissants embark on a survey of madrigals by Carlo Gesualdo – author of both some of the most traditional five-part madrigals ever written and of some of the most extreme vocal chamber works in the history of composition. Gesualdo’s music is intensely expressive. In his madrigals, the subjects of beauty and desire are inextricably bound up with suffering and death. This release features the first two of the composer’s eight books of madrigals.