The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola (review)

Abstract

The Twelve-Tone Music of Luigi Dallapiccola. By Brian Alegant. (East - man Studies Music.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2010. [326p. ISBN 9781580463256. $75.] Music examples, work list, bibliography, index. With this book, Brian Alegant envisions the addition of a new dimension to scholarly literature on the music of Luigi Dallapiccola. The author seeks to find analytical and theoretical framework for the serial music of this composer with emphasis on the middle- and late-period works, an aspect he claims to be missing present secondary literature. On the first page, Alegant sets the tone for his study with the assertion that the approach not ask why Dallapiccola composed with twelve tones, but, rather, how he did (p. 1). In keeping with this statement, the emphasis throughout the book is definitely upon serial procedure with only limited reference to the musical qualities of the works themselves. The statement is conflict with Schoenberg's often cited response to Rudolf Kolisch who had worked out the Schoenberg's Third String Quartet. can't utter too many warnings against overrating these analyses, since after all they only lead to what I have always been dead against: seeing how it is done; whereas I have always helped people to see: what it is! (Arnold Schoenberg, Letters, ed. Erwin Stein, trans. Eithne Wilkins and Ernst Kaiser [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1965], 164-65). Alegant divides his study into two parts. In part 1, he proposes an evolutionary view of twelve-tone technique; part 2, he provides detailed analyses of two of the later twelve-tone works in their entirety, so as to model their large-scale strategy (p. 2). Alegant takes his title for part 1, Dallapiccola's Serial Odyssey, 1942-1972, from Ethan Haimo (Schoenberg's Serial Odyssey: The Evolution of his Twelve-tone Method, 1914-1928 [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990]). The author claims that allegorical journey may be understood as a slow shift . . . from a 'Webernian' conception to a 'Schoen - bergian' one (p. 3). The fundamental characteristics of the two Viennese composers, as Alegant understands them, are presented chart format as a series of seven contrasting pairs of traits (fig. 1.1, p. 10). Throughout the book, the author relies upon these traits as templates for understanding development over a thirty-year period (p. 10). The chart becomes the basis for Alegant's subdivision of entire twelve-tone oeuvre into four phases. However, this chart of contrasting pairs is both incomplete with regard to musical features and inaccurate with regard to some of the serial features of these two composers. The single exclusively musical pair on the list, sparser orchestration for Webern as opposed to denser orchestration for Schoenberg, is too general to be incisive. It ignores matters of orchestral doubling, use of instruments, and texture, all of which differentiate Webern from Schoenberg. In addition, the chart makes no reference to tempo, dynamics, phrase structure, or expressive indications the score. The remaining six contrasting pairs concern serial characteristics. Alegant's use of the terms and aggregate betray a lack of precision. As an example, Alegant contrasts the of Webern's rows with the unordered of Schoenberg's rows. Neither here, nor elsewhere the book, does the author observe the disjunct linear contours common to most of Webern's row presentations and the much more conjunct melodic contours of Schoenberg's row presentations. The term re-ordered is important for an understanding of Schoen - berg's melodic lines, for most certainly they have their own order even when the original order has been reconfigured. Alegant's refererence to these rows as removes the distinction between melodic lines and verticalized segments, the latter referred to by the author as cross partitions. …