Luigi Dallapiccola - Canti di Prigionia (Songs of Prisoners) (1938/1941)

1. The prayer of Mary Stuart
2. Invocation of Boethius
3. Congedo of Girolamo Savanarola (commentary on the Psalm In You O God I Hope)

New London Chamber Choir diretto da James Wood
Ensemble InterContemporain diretto da Hans Zender.

Canti di Prigionia, for instance, which he set to texts about imprisonment from different ages – a prayer of Mary Stuart, Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy and Savonarola’s Meditation on the Psalm ‘My Hope Is In Thee, O Lord’ – was his musical response to Mussolini’s anti-Jewish legislation. Composed in 1938-41, the first canto premiered on Brussels Radio in 1940, weeks before the Nazi invasion of Belgium.

Update:  More from the link.

After the war and the fall of Fascism, Dallapiccola’s music still did not find its place in Italian culture. In the politically polarized late 1940’s and early 50’s, as the Communists and Christian Democrats were competing in both their political and cultural visions for the country’s future, Dallapiccola refused any party affiliation and found himself isolated once again.

A case in point was the critical reaction to the premiere of Il Prigioniero, performed in Florence in 1950. An allegorical work that could have never been performed during Fascism because of its transparent anti-oppression symbolism, it was met with deep suspicion by some of the critics on either side of the new ideological divide.

The subject was an unnamed totalitarian state, but was it Fascism? Was it Communism? Or was it literally a critique of the Church and the Inquisition? While Communist critics feared it could be read as a criticism of Stalinist Soviet Union, Catholics were disturbed by the possible negative implications on the Church itself as an institution.

These reactions to Il Prigioniero were proof of the ideological projections an allegorical work of art can trigger.

Much as his earlier works were stifled by Fascism, Dallapiccola’s masterpiece ended up as collateral damage of clashing post war ideologies trumping artistic expression. Dallapiccola did not hide his disillusionment with the cultural climate that dominated post-war Italy, and began looking for professional opportunities abroad. None of his post 1950 compositions, except for one, had their premiere in Italy.