1. “Basic set” is Arnold Schoenberg's term, which he uses alternately with “set” (1984a), pp.218-219and passim. It refers to a twelve-tone row subject to the canonical twelve-tone operations that functions as the basis for pitch materialofa given serial composition.
2. Dallapiccola makes frequent reference to Lulu. His preoccupation with Berg's opera is evident in its continual surfacing in discussions of other composers, as in, for example, his 1939 essay on Ravel's L'enfant et les Sortilèges (Dallapiccola 1987), p. 125. Raymond Fearn (2003), p.38, points out thatDallapiccola heard the radio broadcast of Lulu's première from Switzerland in 1937and argues (pp. 45-46) that Berg's influence on Dallapiccola's first opera, Volo di notte (1938), was enormous. Fearn, p. 123, also points to Lulu as “the most obvious source of inspiration for Dallapiccola in his attempt with Il prigioniero to forge the closest links between drama and music.” On Schoenberg's claims to the effect that unity depends upon the presence of a single governing set, see Schoenberg (1984a), pp. 219-20; cf. his “Art and the Moving Pictures” (1984b), p. 154.
3. Dallapiccola uses the Italian and French equivalents for “series” or “row” when referring to any total ordering (in time) of the twelve tones; by contrast he uses “combinations” (and later “thematic nuclei”) to refer to partial orderings-those conceived as successions of chords not reconcilable with any succession of single notes. Equivalents of “series” also have a more general usage, “serie” (series appearing consistently along with “la musica seriale” (serial music) and “la tecnica seriale” (serial technique). See, for example, Dallapiccola (1970), p.160and passim, andDallapiccola (1975).