Review of Brian Alegant,The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola(University of Rochester Press, 2010)

Abstract

[1] Although several scholarly studies exist on the music of Luigi Dallapiccola (and excerpts from his works Quaderno musicale di Annalibera and Goethe-Lieder routinely appear in analysis anthologies, theory textbooks, and post-tonal music courses), a comprehensive survey and technical investigation into the composer's serial praxis has long been awaited. Building on Dallapiccola research by Rosemary Brown (1977), Raymond Fearn (2003), and others, as well as incorporating recent theoretical advances in post-tonal theory by David Lewin, Robert Morris, and Joseph Straus, Brian Alegant's book The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola attempts to fill this lacuna with an examination of the Italian master's serial technique-an idiosyncratic and expressive musical language that evolved over a thirty-year period. Alegant's project succeeds, effectively communicating the grace, intelligence, and power of Dallapiccola's music to a diverse readership. Although Alegant justifiably assumes a basic exposure to set theory, one of the book's primary strengths is its accessibility to theorists, musicologists, composers, performers, conductors, and musically inclined general audiences alike. In crafting a work accessible to such a broad readership, Alegant has happily reinforced Dallapiccola's position as a significant twentieth-century composer.[2] The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola is divided into two parts: the first devotes a chapter to each of the four roughly discrete phases in Dallapiccola's musical evolution (as identified and defined by the author) while the second part (Chapters 5-7) expounds the concepts of Part One through more in-depth analyses of the composer's oeuvre. Configuring his book thusly, Alegant elegantly solves a tricky question one faces when authoring a study of a specific composer's vast output-namely, does one favor a discussion of every single piece while not going into great analytical depth (for the sake of being comprehensive) or does one thoroughly explore a small number of works (in the hope that the few will illuminate the whole)? That Alegant more or less attempts both and keeps the page count reasonable is fortunate for the reader, and a testament to the author's straightforward and engaging prose. More casual scholars interested in learning about Dallapiccola's music may choose to read only the first hundred pages that comprise Part One of the book and walk away with a refined account of his serial technique and its hybridization of Second Viennese influences and Italianate lyrical qualities. On the other hand, going further into Part Two (twice the length of Part One) yields interesting extensions for those more devoted to scholarship on modern music. Either way, the smart format of The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola allows for multiple reading scenarios.[3] Chapter 1 outlines the stylistic traits of both Webern's and Schoenberg's mature music (which Dallapiccola synthesized throughout his career, as Alegant will demonstrate), charts the four style periods of Dallapiccola's serial music, provides a brief explanation of cross-partitions (essential to understanding the composer's twelve-tone technique, cf. Alegant 1993), and analyzes the opening of Sex carmina alcaei and the second of the Quattro liriche di Antonio Machado (exemplifying the earliest serial style period). The sample analyses just named are the first examples of positive trends found consistently in Alegant's book: musical examples very generous in length; large-print score excerpts clearly labeled with analytical markings; and the combination of traditional row form analysis with considerations of orchestration, text painting, timbre, and register. The extensive annotated portions of compositions engraved in the book make The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola an exciting and necessary addition to libraries, particularly those at smaller schools with limited copies of twentieth-century music scores. This factor aside, longer excerpts simply clarify and strengthen Alegant's analytical claims. …