PUCCINI
36 videos • 10,261 views • by maisonvuillod Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924) Piano Music Our musical journey begins with Puccini's Piccolo Valse, a recently rediscovered piece which was originally published in Armi ed Arte, Rivista Militare, Letteraria e Sportiva (Arms and Arts - Military, Literary and Sporting Review). The King of Italy invited the great musician to write the piece for the launch of the battleship "Re Umberto". It was just a handful of notes which he dashed down at Torre del Lago on 9th September 1894 and then forgot. Puccini did not want to waste any time thinking about it; he had plenty of other things on his mind: hunting geese, chasing after women and worrying about the spare parts that still hadn't arrived from America for his beloved bicycle, "Mary". Two years passed and then he set about writing La Bohème. He must have remembered those notes for he took them up again, adjusted them, coloured them and reshaped them: the result is one of the most beautiful moments in the opera, "Quando m'en vo soletta", better known as Musetta's Waltz. This was one of Toscanini's favourite pieces and it was he who conducted the world première of the opera at the Teatro Regio in Turin in 1896. Puccini and Toscanini relationship was a stormy one, full of ups and downs. At a time when they were not on good terms, Puccini sent Toscanini a Panettone (cake at Christmas); immediately afterwards he remembered that they were not speaking to each other and sent him a telegram: "Panettone sent by mistake. Puccini". The answer arrived: "Panettone eaten by mistake. Toscanini." Shortly before he died, Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini wrote to a friend: "Almighty God touched me with his little finger and said to me: Write for the theatre. Remember, only for the theatre. And I have obeyed that supreme commandment". Having accepted divine will, Puccini composed some of the most popular operas ever written, earned a few millions, gambled most of the money away at the poker table, satisfied his appetite for loose women, boats and fast cars and, most of all, exterminated the population of wild geese around his villa at Torre del Lago. This in a nutshell is the life of Puccini, who defined himself as "a mighty hunter of wild birds, opera librettos and beautiful women", and who said "Just think! If I hadn't happened to take up music I would never have managed to do anything in this world!î" The space devoted to Puccini follows with other two piano pieces: Foglio d'Album and Piccolo Tango. The works were written in 1907, the former on his return from the United States, the latter after his trip to Argentina. Two brief sketches, quite different from his usual style, show us that Puccini was a most singular character and a man who was always on the lookout for new musical forms. The Piccolo Tango in particular is a surprise: the composer came across this new "genre" which had just appeared in Buenos Aires (the real tango was to develop about 1920) and was immediately fascinated: he took up pen and music paper and tried to create his own, individual record of the feelings he had experienced away from home. Puccini is believed to have written only three more pieces for the piano. In 1881, while he was studying in Milan, he wrote an Adagio, which he used later in his first opera Le Villi, whilst a melodic idea was taken up in the Symphonic Prelude in A major. In 1896 the Telegraphists' Association asked him to write something to celebrate the centenary of Alessandro Volta's invention of the electric battery. The result was Scossa elettrica (Electric shock), a dazzling, original little march, written originally for piano and then transcribed, naturally enough, for band. The Pezzo per Pianoforte, Calmo e molto lento (Piano Piece, calm and very slow) was composed in 1916 in his beloved residence at Torre del Lago as part of an album to raise funds for the families of victims of the Great War. The Capriccio Sinfonico, a compulsory composition, at the end of Puccini's studies at the Milan Conservatory in the summer of 1883, marked the conclusion of his musical training. The success of the first performance was noteworthy, and it led to Giovannina Lucca taking an interest in this piece. She agreed to print a version for piano duet. The arrangement was made by Puccini's fellow student Giuseppe Frugatta. Moreover, Puccini was able to dedicate this work to an important personage, Prince Carlo Poniatowski, a Fiorentine nobleman and a great music lover. The piano duet version, representing what was then a favourite way to make a work available for domestic music making, appeared in March 1884. The arrangement was made from a copy of the score which Puccini caused to be made immediately after the premiere of the orchestral work. Puccini later complained about the many mistakes in this arrangement. This does not alter the fact that the piano duet arrangement is a valid version approved of by the composer.