In the early 1940s, composer Luigi Dallapiccola (1904-1975) wrote a triptych of song cycles for voice and instruments, the Liriche greche ("Greek Lyrics"). The individual cycles are Cinque frammenti di Saffo ("Five Sappho Fragments," 1942); Sex carmina Alcaei ("Six Alcaeus Songs," 1943); and Due liriche di Aruicreonte ("Two Anacreon Lyrics," 1944-45). The songs, settings of Salvatore Quasimodo's Italian translation of ancient Greek lyrics, were the first works Dallapiccola composed in his mature, dodecaphonic style. For Dallapiccola—twentieth-century man, Italian, Central European, lover of literature, essayist, protester against oppression, and composer—music was a means of self-expression. The central questions of this study are; what does Dallapiccola wish to express in the Liriche greche, and how does he express it? The nature of the songs is related to the circumstances of their composition. Dallapiccola suffered particular hardship in World War II Italy. He lived in fear because his wife was Jewish; he abhorred the fascist government; and he felt ostracized by the musical public. Inspired by the "supreme equilibrium" of Quasimodo's Greek lyrics, Dallapiccola retreated from the war into the "spiritual refuge" of ancient civilization
