ABSTRACT
Luigi Dallapiccola (1904–75) studied at the Cherubini Conservatory in Florence, where he joined the teaching staff in 1934. Making Florence his home-town, he taught at the Conservatory until 1967, but frequently travelled abroad especially to the USA, both as a concert pianist and as a teacher and internationally recognized lecturer. Dallapiccola claims that his opera is a 'narrative' work of the type favoured by Bellow, offering a personal philosophy of life rather than a comment upon social or political 'events'; and that in this troubled world, the former is to be desired and sought after more than the latter. This chapter also focuses upon certain of these influences and explains how they are used by Dallapiccola to carve out the image of a tormented Ulysses who symbolizes modern man, and for whom Dallapiccola posits a religious answer to the problems of existence.
