Discovering Dallapiccola's Suleika in the Goethe Lieder

Abstract

This thesis explores text-music relationships in Dallapiccola’s Goethe Lieder. Though the cycle is based on Goethe’s West-östlicher divan, it was Mann’s novel Joseph und seine Brüder that spurred its inception. This seven-song cycle revolves around Suleika, a character from the biblical love story of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife. Dallapiccola set this text upon reading Mann’s novel, which stems from the same story; however, Mann portrayed the character of Suleika as a sympathetic lover rather than the traditional evil seductress. By conducting a thorough pitch structure analysis of each song, focusing in particular on motives, symmetry and aggregates, this thesis examines text-music relationships to demonstrate how Mann’s Suleika is musically represented. This thesis illustrates that Dallapiccola’s setting is a musical composite of both Goethe and Mann’s Suleikas and thus sheds new analytical and hermeneutic light on an important work by one of the twentieth-century’s most prominent serial composers.