The ‘Day of Wrath’ as Musico-Political Statement in Dallapiccola's Canti di Prigionia
One of the most interesting modern ‘borrowings’ of the famous ‘Dies irae’ chant comes within the Italian composer Luigi Dallapiccola's Canti di Prigionia of 1938–1941. Written at a time of extreme political tension, the Canti were—from the composer's own testimony—a protest against Mussolini's introduction of the infamous racial laws in 1938. But while the composer's own hermeneutic proposes the ‘Dies irae’ as a symbolic representation of oppression overlaid onto a ‘purely’ dodecaphonic work, one senses that this will not do: politically, this viewpoint is problematic, and musically, it is simply not borne out by analysis. In this article, I offer a new reading of this work as a ‘confessional’ piece, and in interrogating the relationship between the very old (plainchant) and the very new (a natal serialism), suggest that the Canti evince a sophisticated type of musical ‘paradox’.
Fascist Spectacle: The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini's Italy
This richly textured cultural history of Italian fascism traces the narrative path that accompanied the making of the regime and the construction of Mussolini's power. Simonetta Falasca-Zamponi reads fascist myths, rituals, images, and speeches as texts that tell the story of fascism. Linking Mussolini's elaboration of a new ruling style to the shaping of the regime's identity, she finds that in searching for symbolic means and forms that would represent its political novelty, fascism in fact brought itself into being, creating its own power and history. Falasca-Zamponi argues that an aesthetically founded notion of politics guided fascist power's historical unfolding and determined the fascist regime's violent understanding of social relations, its desensitized and dehumanized claims to creation, its privileging of form over ethical norms, and ultimately its truly totalitarian nature.
Facilitating Spiritual Care in the Rehabilitation Setting
&NA; Nurses, who traditionally have espoused a holistic approach to patient care, are in a unique position to attend to clients’ spiritual needs. The assessment, planning, and provision of spiritual care is particularly important in the rehabilitation setting. Research attention needs to be directed at gaps in the current state of knowledge and practice of spiritual care to meet the needs of rehabilitation clients.