Puccini - Turandot, manoscritto Trovare melo[dia] (maggio o giugno 1921) --> lionheartautographs/autograph/18937-PUCCINI,-GIACOMO-Rare-autograph-manuscript-page-from-Puccini%E2%80%99s-unfinished-final-opera,-Turandot PUCCINI, GIACOMO. (1858-1924). Modern Italy’s most successful opera composer after Verdi. AMusMs (unsigned). 1½pp. Small folio (12 x 13 inches). N.p., N.d. (c. May or June 1921). A nine-measure musical section (seven measures on the recto, two on the verso) from Puccini’s sketches for Act II of Turandot boldly written out in pencil in Puccini’s notational shorthand with his holograph heading “trovare melo[dia],” or “find a melody.” Three bars on the recto have been crossed out. These measures are Puccini’s notes for the crucial point of Act II when Turandot explains the three riddles to the prince, “Gli enigmi sono tre, la morte è una,” and the prince replies “No, No Gli enigmi sono tre una è vita!” Accompanied by an unrecorded variant of the rare first Italian piano-vocal edition of the first version of Turandot Dramma Lirico in Tre Atti e Cinque Quadri...di G. Adami e R. Simoni published by G. Ricordi & Co. in 1926. 398pp. 4to. In 1920, Puccini began composing what would become his final work, Turandot, based on Carlo Gozzi’s eponymous play, whichtells a story from the Persian Book of One Thousand and One Days. “With Turandot Puccini felt that he was moving on to a loftier plane, that an ‘original and perhaps unique work is in the making,’ compared with which all his previous music seemed to him ‘a farce.’ But no other opera cost him so much labour and toil… and no other opera filled him with such strong doubts about his creative powers,” (The New Grove Dictionary). Unfortunately, ill health interfered and “towards the end of 1923 he began to complain of pains in his throat. In the autumn of 1924, three specialists diagnosed cancer,” (ibid.). On November 29, 1924, he died from complications of surgery, leaving behind the incomplete manuscript for Turandot. Puccini had finished the composition and orchestration up to Liù’s death scene and made sketches and notes for some portions of act three. He asked Toscanini to oversee the completion of the opera, and the conductor engaged Franco Alfano who used Puccini’s notes. In 1926, Turandot premiered under Toscanini’s baton at La Scala. Our manuscript is headed with the enigmatic scrawl “Trovare melodia,” or “find a melody,” in which Puccini acknowledges that his sketch lacks a melody at the point of the climax of the harmonic and dramatic progression at the moment the work transitions in Act II from F major to A major. “Starting in the F major key, the 7-measure draft shows a sequential modulation based on the motif that in Act II gets linked with the sung words, ‘Gli enigmi sono tre, la morte è una.’ The position of this theme as climax of Turandot’s aria within Act II leaves no room, at least not in its form known today, for the kind of thematic development shown here. The modulation from F into the increasingly higher regions of the orchestra eventually reaches the key of A major which, supported by soft chords in the high register, would permit the entrance of ‘Mio fiore, mio fiore mattutino.’ Puccini’s handwritten note at the top of the page ‘trovare melo(dia)?’ seems to indicate that he himself was not convinced by the drafted version,” (translated from “Giacomo Puccini’s Schaffensprozeß im Spiegel seiner Skizzen für Libretto und Komposition,” in “Vom Einfall zum Kunstwerk ─ Der Kompositionsprozeß in der Musik des 20 Jahrhunderts,” Schriften der Musikhochschule Hannover, Maehder.) Our manuscript is recorded in Dieter Schickling’s Giacomo Puccini: Catalogue of the Works, which, among other errors, incorrectly records that two measures are struck through when, in fact, three have been crossed out by Puccini. Schickling states that “These are two sketches for the beginning of the riddle scene (Act 2, fig. 48-1/+1). They probably belonged to the sketches Puccini wrote before he began the continuous composition of the original version of Act 1 (which then also comprised what is now Act 2). Therefore, they probably date from May or June 1921.” According to Italian music critic Teodoro Celli, our manuscript was formerly in the collection of Guido Zuccoli, who was employed by Ricordi to transcribe and arrange Puccini’s work, including Turandot, (Giacomo Puccini: Catalogue of the Works, Schickling). Puccini most likely made a gift of this manuscript page after his composition of Act II. AlthoughAlfono incorporated a similar passage into Act III, it is unlikely that he used our manuscript, already in the personal possession of Zuccoli prior to Puccini’s death. In fact, Alfano relied heavily on Zuccoli’s transcriptions of Puccini’s often illegible manuscript for his completion of Turandot. The first edition is quarter beige cloth, printed paper over boards with some wear at extremities of fragile boards. Decorative endpapers. Front hinge cracked. The manuscript has a few short and scattered tears. Manuscript material from Turandot is rare. We could find no Turandot manuscripts offered for sale at auction in ABPC going back to 1976. Our thanks to Dr. Jürgen Maehder of the Puccini Research Center in Berlin for his invaluable assistance.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 20:52:20 +0000
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