Much has been written about Luigi Dallapiccola’s acquisition of the twelvetone method. The composer, in his writings, frequently lamented the fact that he had had no direct study with any of the “masters,” and that his knowledge of the twelve-tone technique came only through “long and careful” study of the music of Webern and Schoenberg. Some musicologists, such as Christopher Wilkinson, deny the influence of Webern altogether; others, like Giordano Montecchi, argue that Dallapiccola was predisposed to formal rigor and intricate counterpoint long before he embraced the twelve-tone system, and that he came independently to Webernian features. Michael Eckert asserts another viewpoint: “In any case, it is difficult to make a case for much of Dallapiccola’s music having been directly influenced by that of other composers… . Rather, it was Dallapiccola’s thinking about music that was influenced by Schoenberg, Busoni, Malipiero, and, to a lesser extent, Webern, as well as by the authors Joyce, Proust, and Thomas Mann.” In this and the subsequent chapters I argue to the contrary, and attempt to demonstrate convincingly the influence of both Schoenberg and Webern.

Figure 1.1 lists several fundamental characteristics that I identify as Webernian or Schoenbergian. The former characteristics are distilled from Webern’s socalled “late period,” which encompasses the works from the Symphony, Op. 21 to the second cantata, Op. 31. The Schoenbergian traits are primarily drawn from the extended “American period” efforts, principally the Violin Concerto (Op. 36), the Fourth Quartet (Op. 37), the Piano Concerto (Op. 42), and the Phantasy for Violin and Piano (Op. 47). (Sprechstimme, of course, is an earlier, preserial device.) Webernian features include a preference for ordered rows, which tend to unfold in a linear fashion (most often in one-through-twelve presentations); polyphonic textures; relatively sparse orchestrations; rows that possess symmetrical properties; and axial symmetries that involve the disposition of lines about a single pitch (or pitch class). In contrast, Schoenbergian characteristics include a preference for unordered row presentations and hexachordal structuring; homophonic textures; denser orchestrations; rows whose constituent hexachords can be grouped into regions or quartets; and the use of Klangfarbenmelodie. (These procedures are defined as we encounter them.)