The years of crisis (1916–19): instrumental works, notably ‘Pause del silenzio I' and the ‘Ditirambo tragico'

A quarter of a century later, Malipiero wrote of this unprecedentedly turbulent period as follows:

In 1914 the war disrupted my whole life which, until 1920, was a perennial tragedy. The works of those years perhaps reflect my agitation; however, I consider that if I have created something new in my art (formally and stylistically) it happened precisely in that period. ¹