The article aims to demonstrate that, even though the Sirens are only briefly alluded to by Circe at the very end of the III Scene of the I Act, their wordless seductive song is represented by the enchanting canon cancrizans played by the two flutes at the end of the instrumental interlude between III and IV scene of the I Act. The hypothesis that Dallapiccola might have had the idea to employ the contrapuntal technique in this passage under the influence of the alleged musical structure of the Chapter 12 of Joyce’s Ulysses - a text that he knew very well - is also proposed. Several details of the libretto and of the score of Dallapiccola’s Ulisse are analysed, in connection with a number of manuscript sources (notes, schemes, sketches, drafts) and of letters attesting different steps of the compositional process. The documents taken into consideration belong to the ‘Fondo Dallapiccola’, now preserved in the Archivio Contemporaneo ‘A. Bonsanti’ at the Gabinetto ‘G. P. Vieusseux’ in Firenze.
Parole e musica per le Sirene in 'Ulisse' di Luigi Dallapiccola
MERIANI, Angelo
2015-01-01
Abstract
The article aims to demonstrate that, even though the Sirens are only briefly alluded to by Circe at the very end of the III Scene of the I Act, their wordless seductive song is represented by the enchanting canon cancrizans played by the two flutes at the end of the instrumental interlude between III and IV scene of the I Act. The hypothesis that Dallapiccola might have had the idea to employ the contrapuntal technique in this passage under the influence of the alleged musical structure of the Chapter 12 of Joyce’s Ulysses - a text that he knew very well - is also proposed. Several details of the libretto and of the score of Dallapiccola’s Ulisse are analysed, in connection with a number of manuscript sources (notes, schemes, sketches, drafts) and of letters attesting different steps of the compositional process. The documents taken into consideration belong to the ‘Fondo Dallapiccola’, now preserved in the Archivio Contemporaneo ‘A. Bonsanti’ at the Gabinetto ‘G. P. Vieusseux’ in Firenze.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
