Ahi, dispietata e cruda

Carlo Gesualdo's Ahi, dispietata e cruda is a secular madrigal for SSATB voices in Italian. The text expresses the singer's lament to a cruel and pitiless beloved, questioning why they weep at the singer's impending death. The singer laments that their death is compounded by the beloved's pain, and despite the beloved's fierce and deceitful desire, the singer cannot bear to die of this double grief. Gesualdo's intense setting captures the raw emotion of the text, with dissonances and chromaticism reflecting the singer's anguish and despair.