Most scholars would agree that twelve-tone composition is among the most important musical developments of the twentieth century. Evan a partial list of twentieth-century composers who embraced or experimented with serial procedures would be staggering, and would include such names as Babbitt, Barber, Bartók, Berg, Boulez, Britten, Carter, Crawford, Ligeti, Lutosławski, Mamloc, Martino, Mead, Morris, Nono, Perle, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Sessions, Schnittke, Skalkattos, Stockhausen, Stravinsky, Webern, and Wuorinen. Most scholars would also agree that Luigi Dallapiccola (1904–75) is among the most accomplished and admired serial composers. His output includes ballets, choral music, concertos, film scores, piano pieces, song cycles, orchestral pieces, and operas. He enjoyed international fame as a lecturer, teacher, and author, and was a member of the national academies of arts in the US, France, and England.

The scholarly literature on Dallapiccola is vast. It comprises a host of books and monographs, countless articles, and an ever-growing number of dissertations and theses. As a result, we know quite a bit about his music: his predilection for self-quotation and symbolism, his fondness for intricate counterpoint and systematic designs; his penchant for languages and text setting; his stylistic eclecticism and idiosyncratic procedures; and his appropriation of Anton Webern’s techniques. Yet many facets of Dallapiccola’s music await further explanation.

The most comprehensive books on Dallapiccola in English are Rosemary Brown’s dissertation, Continuity and Recurrence in the Creative Development of Luigi Dallapiccola (1977), and Raymond Fearn’s The Music of Luigi Dallapiccola (2003). Both authors focus on broad issues of style, and make it a point to discuss every one of Dallapiccola’s works, including the student efforts. Brown’s approach is parametric: she examines the composer’s output from the standpoint of individual techniques or characteristics. Thus, there are chapters on such topics as pedal points, symbolism, texture, and rhythm. It remains perhaps the best source of information on the composer’s stylistic uniformity and his fondness for symbolic self-quotation. However, it is not widely available, and it shies away from technical description. Fearn takes a chronological approach to Dallapiccola’s music, and paints with a wide brush. He discusses most of the compositions in a few pages each; a few works are covered in a single page. He, too, avoids technical descriptions, beyond the basic identification of twelve-tone rows and textures.