We think it is likely that Gesualdo felt terribly guilt all his life about the murders he had committed, and these guilty feelings can be heard in his music. The words of his madrigals are often very emotional: they are about "love", "pain", "death", "ecstasy", "agony". Of course, other madrigal composers used such words, but Gesualdo’s music is really extreme. It is often wildly chromatic. Other composers did not copy his style.