The Music of Luigi Dallapiccola (review)

Abstract

Music of Luigi Dallapiccola. By Raymond Fearn. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003. [xviii, 303 p. ISBN 1-58046-OV8-X. $90.] Music examples, list of compositions, bibliography, index. English readers have long awaited a definitive book on the life and works of Luigi Dallapiccola. While American and British writers have produced a number of important articles and essays and a handful of unpublished doctoral dissertations on specific works from Dallapiccola's oeuvre, there is to date neither a full-scale biographical study nor a critical examination of his compositional output. Raymond Fearn seeks to fill this serious gap for English readers of Iwenticth-century music history by providing a study of the complete works of Dallapiccola documented with information about their historical context. book complements Dietrich Kamper's study of twenty years ago (Gefangenschaft und Freiheil: Leben und Werk des Komponisten Luigi Dallapiccola [Koln: Gitarre + Laute Verlag, 1984]) and Mario Ruffini's recent sourcebook (L'opera di Luigi Dallapiccola: Catalogo Ragionato [Milan: Edizioni Suvini Zerboni, 2002]). real strength of Fearn's book is found in its historical and biographical side, providing the reader with much information and detail that has never been made available in print. Especially in the first chapter, the author provides a wealth of information about Dallapiccola's musical training and background and aspects of his musical life and literary activity in Italy prior to the Second World War. book also includes very full discussions of Dallapiccola's literary sources and the role that Laura Dallapiccola played in helping him to make judicious textual choices. Fearn has consulted a wide range of both primary and secondary source materials: sketches, letters, notebooks, and diaries from the archival collection in Florence, Italy; writings of and consultation with specialists; and interviews with members of the Dallapiccola family. Included is an accurate listing of the composer's published compositions and writings on music, a good selective list of secondary literature on Dallapiccola, and a substantial listing of current secondary literature on twelve-tone music in general. book is organized under six chronologically ordered headings: The Beginnings (1904-1938); Self-Exile and Discovery (1939-1945); Towards the Light of Freedom (1945-1948); The Serial Idea (1948-1953); Text and Symbol (1954-1964); and Ulysses, Wanderer and Discoverer (1965-1975). Whereas these titles are useful in identifying thematic elements that Fearn wishes to explore in the book, the chronological divisions thus established separate compositional groups that were conceived together. In particular, the constellation of works that include the piano set Quaderno musicale di Annalibera (1951-52), the Vanazioni per Orchestra (1954), and the symphonic choral work Canti di liberazione (1951-55), all based upon the same tone row, are discussed in separate chapters without reference to mutual influences between them and the place that such mutual influence played in Dallapiccola's development as a composer of large-scale serial works. There is also an inconsistency in the purpose of the individual chapter titles when they also serve as guides to the composer's chronology. Is the reader to infer that Dallapiccola's compositional procedure varied between nonreferential structuralism (The Serial Idea) and poetic conception (Towards the Light of Freedom) in different periods of his life? chronological approach followed in this text would be better served with chapter divisions and titles that reflect musical stylistic changes, probably with a break before Liriche greche (begun in 1942), the first completely serial work; a second break after Canti di liberazione (1955), when the Quaderno/Variazioni/Canti group was completed; while retaining the final break in 1964. …