Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in 1960s Italy by Vivienne Suvini-Hand

Abstract

MLR, I03.4, 2008 I14I Self-borrowing-repetition-is most foundwhere a readermight expect it least, in moments of epiphany. There are twomajor kinds of epiphany inPirandello's works: the 'positive',which uses the language of revelation andmysticism, and the 'negative', which uses the language of violence and rupture (p. 52). In his use of epiphany Pi randello imitates both Romantic concepts and himself, suggesting that a 'humoristic' sublime moment can be achieved by amagical incantation, 'the fetishisticattachment to the same groups ofwords' (p. 54). O'Rawe argues not only that an examination of epiphany and metaphor reveals a narrative strategy but that they also provide a key to Pirandello's narrative poetics. Linking the figural language ofmetaphor and epiphany with an examination of layers of textual revisions leads to the realization thatPirandello's poetics can be best described as a 'grafting',a combination of organic growth and violent intrusion, a process described at some length by the gardener in Pirandello's play L'innesto. 'In thegraft, the main, dominant or historically grounded textaccepts the foreign element and makes itstronger' (p. I38). A short review cannot do justice to this arresting critical work. A combination of bold ideas with ameticulous attention to detail and a broad theoretical foundation characterizes O'Rawe's critical approach. Insights are always well substantiated with abundant evidence. Each of the chapters on individual texts provides a cogent and illuminating reading (andmany of the footnotes are treasures in themselves). O'Rawe keeps her observations firmlyfixedon thePirandellian textbut there are important implications here for the process of reading itself. Authorial Echoes is both amajor contribution toPirandello scholarship and a seminal challenge tonarrative criticism. UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK JENNIFER LORCH Sweet Thunder: Music and Libretti in I960S Italy. By VIVIENNE SUVINI-HAND. (Ita lian Perspectives, i6) London: Legenda. 2006. x+294 pp. C45. ISBN 978-I 904350-60-6. The term 'libretto' names the text-usually poetic-set tomusic by the composer of an opera. Published separately from thevocal or full scores, this 'littlebook' will also give stage directions and a list of characters. Of the fiveworks studied by Vivienne Suvini-Hand, only Luigi Dallapiccola's Ulisse (Berlin, I968) has a libretto.The other four setwhat musicians simply call 'texts' (not 'lyrics', as Suvini-Hand repeatedly has it: a term reserved forpopular genres). But Italian composers of the I96os had not ceased towrite operas, even if the younger generation preferred to call theirmusic theatrical assaults on bourgeois proprieties 'azioni sceniche'. A book that lived up to Suvini-Hand's subtitle would survey a good three dozen works, demonstrating a striking range of verbal and musical forms and styles, from thepolitically committed avant-gardism of Luigi Nono's Intolleranza I960 (Venice, I96I) through the high modernist Ulisse to the quirky productions of Gian Francesco Malipiero and the conservative music dramas of Ildebrando Pizzetti. After her Dallapiccola chapter, Suvini-Hand instead discusses three avant-garde concert works that combine voices, instruments, and tape: Luciano Berio's Laborin tusII (I965), Giacomo Manzoni's Parole da Beckett (1970), and Bruno Maderna's Ausstrahlung (197I). Between the Berio (which, admittedly, may also be presented theatrically but rarelyhas been) and theManzoni she tacklesArmando Gentilucci's Strofe di Ungaretti (i 967) forsix voices. Texts and translations follow as an appendix. Ulisse and Laborintus II are reasonably well known; scores of theother three,by con trast,are not easily to be found inBritish libraries, ifat all; and neither the Manzoni nor theGentilucci is available on CD. One wonders why Suvini-Hand has elected to write detailed commentaries on pieces thatwill be inaudible or invisible (or both) for I I42 Reviews most readers, as she does not make much of a case for them: throughout the book, she largely bypasses themusic of her chosen compositions inorder to trace sources forand connections between thecomponents of their texts. When one considers that, apart from theUngaretti poems set by Gentilucci and the libretto of Ulisse, these texts scarcely inviteconsideration away from theirmusic, and further,that inParole da Beckett, as Suvini-Hand puts it, thewords 'are, to a large extent, treated as raw elementary sound, and the actual text is often unintelligible' (p. I42), the project begins to take on an air...