D allapiccola's E arly S ynthesis : N o . 1, ‘V espro , T utto R iporti ’, from C inque F rammenti di S affo

Recent Italian commentary on the twelve‐note music of Luigi Dallapiccola (1904–75) has tended to reject the characteristic image of this composer's work that was established during his lifetime. Notions of a ‘typically Italian lyricism’ or a ‘Mediterranean serialism’ have been jettisoned in favour of an emphasis on the neo‐Webernian ‘rigour’ of his technique. Such revisionism is misguided. Not only does this new approach exhibit a narrow formalism, but it also downplays the very elements that have granted Dallapiccola's twelve‐note music its special position on the periphery of the twentieth‐century repertory. By means of detailed analysis of Dallapiccola's first fully dodecaphonic work, the first of the Cinque frammenti di Saffo (1942), this article mounts a defence of the old critical line. Rather than merely highlighting instances of serial ‘rigour’, the aim is to provide an appreciation of the richness and complexity of the synthesis of stylistic, technical and expressive elements in Dallapiccola's music of this period.