ABSTRACT
If anyone work may be said to show the first unmistakable signs of the approach of Malipiero's dotage, it is that curious concoction the so-called Ottavo Dialogo: la morte di Socrate (dal Fedone), which I have already suggested1 should really be classified not with the Dialoghi at all, but with the ensuing 'rappresentazioni da concerto'. Viewed in the context of either set of works, the achievement of this strangely inert and unprepossessing piece seems fairly meagre. Admittely the orchestral introduction, with its plaintively exotic post-echoes of the Sammuramai episode in Mondi celesti e infernali, promises well enough; but as soon as the baritone soloist enters, singing a rather awkward and prosaic patchwork of excerpts from Plato's Phaedo, a weight descends upon the music from which it never fully recovers. Not only does Malipiero's Platonic collage compare unfavourably with the profoundly moving one assembled by Erik Sa tie for the third part of his Socrate (1918), but seldom if ever before had the more negative aspects of the Venetian composer's recitative style (especially its uniformity) been quite so ruthlessly and remorselessly put on display; and the fairly numerous imaginative details in the orchestral accompaniment, though effective enough as far as they go/ are insufficient to save the situation.
