Simone Ciolfi

Luigi Dallapiccola's chamber opera  Job, una Sacra Rappresentazione , a work commissioned by the Anfiparnaso association of Rome and composed in the summer of 1950, appears to have received little musicological attention. Overshadowed by the fame of both  Il Prigioniero (1949) and  Ulisse  (1968), the dramatic and musical value of  Job , Dallapiccola's first dodecaphonic theatre work, has been somewhat underrated. The present article, the first in Italian on the subject, takes its cue from the composer's correspondence on the opera, and makes use of the material preserved in the Archivio Contemporaneo “A. Bonsanti” of the Gabinetto Vieusseux in Florence. From the hitherto unpublished epistolary material, Dallapiccola vividly emerges as deeply engaged in fulfilling the ethical and cultural mission that he considered composition to be. While the musical ideas appeared to pour out from a mysterious source, daily routine seemed to conspire against him, involving him in a con...