GIACOMO PUCCINI Italian Composer (1858-1924) Giacomo Puccini free midi download

GIACOMO PUCCINI
22^th December 1858 --- 29^th November 1924

Giacomo Puccini(born 1858, Lucca, Tuscany [Italy]--died 1924, Brussels, Belgium), Italian composer, one of the greatest exponents of
operatic realism, who virtually brought the history of Italian opera to an end. His mature operas include La Bohème 1896, Tosca 1900
Madama Butterfly 1904, and Turandot, left incomplete.

Puccini was the last descendant of a family that for two centuries had provided the musical directors of the Cathedral of San Martino in
Lucca. Puccini initially dedicated himself to music, therefore, not as a personal vocation but as a family profession. He was orphaned at
the age of five by the death of his father, and the municipality of Lucca supported the family with a small pension and kept the position
of cathedral organist open for Giacomo until he became of age. He first studied music with two of his father's former pupils, and he
played the organ in small local churches. A performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Aida, which he saw in Pisa in 1876, convinced him that his
true vocation was opera. In the autumn of 1880 he went to study at the Milan Conservatory, where his principal teachers were Antonio
Bazzini a famous violinist and composer of chamber music, and Amilcare Ponchielli, the composer of the opera La gioconda. On July 16,
1883 he received his diploma and presented as his graduation composition Capriccio sinfonico, an instrumental work that attracted the
attention of influential musical circles in Milan. In the same year, he entered Le villi in a competition for one-act operas. The judges did
not think Le villi worthy of consideration, but a group of friends, led by the composer-librettist Arrigo Boito, subsidized its production
and its premiere took place with immense success at Milan's Verme Theatre on May 31, 1884.

Le villi was remarkable for its dramatic power, its operatic melody, and revealing the influence of Richard Wagner's works, the really
important role played by the orchestra. The music publisher Giulio Ricordi immediately acquired the copyright with the stipulation that
the opera be expanded to two acts. He also commissioned Puccini to write a new opera for La Scala and gave him a monthly stipend
thus began Puccini's lifelong association with Giulio Ricordi, who was to become a staunch friend and counselor.

After the death of his mother, Puccini fled from Lucca with a married woman, Elvira Gemignani. Finding in their passion the courage to
defy the truly enormous scandal generated by their illegal union, they lived at first in Monza, near Milan, where a son, Antonio, was
born. In 1890 they moved to Milan, and in 1891 to Torre del Lago, a fishing village on Lake Massaciuccoli in Tuscany. This home was to
become Puccini's refuge from life, and he remained there until three years before his death, when he moved to ViaStevengio. But living
with Elvira proved difficult. Tempestuous rather than compliant, she was justifiably jealous and was not an ideal companion. The two
were finally able to marry in 1904, after the death of Elvira's husband. Puccini's second opera, Edgar, based on a verse drama by the
French writer Alfred de Musset, had been performed at La Scala in 1889, and it was a failure. Nevertheless, Ricordi continued to have
faith in his protégé and sent him to Bayreuth in Germany to hear Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

Mature work and fame. Puccini returned from Bayreuth with the plan for Manon Lescaut, based, like the Manon of the French composer
Jules Massenet, on the celebrated 18th-century novel by the Abbé Prévost. Beginning with this opera, Puccini carefully selected the
subjects for his operas and spent considerable time on the preparation of the librettos. The psychology of the heroine in Manon Lescaut
as in succeeding works, dominates the dramatic nature of Puccini's operas. Puccini, in sympathy with his public, was writing to move
them so as to assure his success. The score of Manon Lescaut, dramatically alive, prefigures the operatic refinements achieved in his
mature operas, La Bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and La fanciulla del west (1910; The Girl of the Golden West). These four mature
works also tell a moving love story, one that centres entirely on the feminine protagonist and ends in a tragic resolution. All four speak
the same refined and limpid musical language of the orchestra that creates a subtle play of thematic reminiscences. The music always
emerges from the words, indissolubly bound to their meaning and to the images they evoke. In Bohème, Tosca, and Butterfly, he had
been collaborating enthusiastically with the writers Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica. The first performance (Feb. 17, 1904) of
Madama Butterfly was a fiasco, probably because the audience found the work too much like Puccini's preceding operas.

In 1908, having spent the summer in Cairo, the Puccinis returned to Torre del Lago, and Giacomo devoted himself to Fanciulla. Elvira
unexpectedly had become jealous of Doria Manfredi, a young servant from the village who had been employed for several years by the
Puccinis. She drove Doria from the house threatening to kill her. Subsequently, the servant girl poisoned herself, and her parents had
the body examined by a physician, who declared her a virgin. The Manfredis brought charges against Elvira Puccini for persecution and
calumny, creating one of the most famous scandals of the time. Elvira was found guilty, but through the negotiations of the lawyers
was not sentenced, and Puccini paid damages to the Manfredis, who withdrew their accusations. Eventually the Puccinis adjusted
themselves to a coexistence, but the composer from then on demanded absolute freedom of action.

The premiere of La fanciulla del west took place at the famous Metropolitan in New York City in December 1910, with Arturo Toscanini
conducting. It was a great triumph, and with it Puccini reached the end of his mature period. He admitted "writing an opera is difficult.
For one who had been the typical operatic representative of the turn of the century, he felt the new century advancing ruthlessly with
problems no longer his own. He just did not understand contemporary events, such as World War I. In 1917 at Monte-Carlo in Monaco
Puccini's opera La rondine was first performed and then was quickly forgotten.

He was always interested in contemporary operatic compositions, Puccini studied the works of Claude Debussy, Richard Strauss, Arnold
Schoenberg and Igor Stravinsky. From this study emerged Il trittico (The Triptych, New York City, 1918), three stylistically individual
one-act operas--the melodramatic Il tabarro (The Cloak), the sentimental Suor Angelica, and the comic Gianni Schicchi. His last opera
based on the fable of Turandot as told in the play Turandot by the 18th-century Italian dramatist Carlo Gozzi, is the only Italian opera in
the Impressionistic style. Puccini did not complete Turandot, and unable to write a final grand duet on the triumphant love between
Turandot and Calaf. Suffering from cancer of the throat, he was ordered to Brussels for surgery, and a few days afterward he died with
the incomplete score of Turandot in his hands.

Turandot was performed posthumously at La Scala on April 25, 1926, and Arturo Toscanini, who conducted the performance, concluded
the opera at the point Puccini had reached before dying. Two final scenes were completed by Franco Alfano from Puccini's sketches.

Solemn funeral services were held for Puccini at La Scala in Milan, and his body was taken to Torre del Lago, which became the Puccini
Pantheon. Shortly afterward, Elvira and Antonio were also buried there. The Puccini house became a museum and an archive.

The majority of Puccini's operas illustrate a theme defined in Il tabarro, "Chi ha vissuto per amore, per amore si morì" ("He who has
lived for love, has died for love"). This theme is played out in the fate of his heroines women who are devoted body and soul to their
lovers are tormented by feelings of guilt and are punished by the infliction of pain until in the end they are destroyed. In his treatment
of this theme, Puccini combines compassion and pity for his heroines with a strong streak of sadism, hence the strong emotional
appeal but also the restricted scope of the Puccinian type of opera. The main feature of Puccini's musicodramatic style is his ability to
identify himself with his subject; each opera has its distinctive ambience. With an unfailing instinct for balanced dramatic structure
Puccini knew that an opera is not all action, movement, and conflict, it must also contain moments of repose, contemplation, and
lyricism. For such moments he invented an original type of melody, passionate and radiant, yet marked by an underlying morbidity
examples are the "farewell" and "death" arias that also reflect the persistent melancholy from which he suffered in his personal life.

Puccini's approach to dramatic composition is expressed in his own words: "The basis of an opera is its subject and its treatment." The
fashioning of a story into a moving drama for the stage claimed his attention in the first place, and he devoted to this part of his work
as much labour as to the musical composition itself. The action of his operas is uncomplicated and self-evident, so that the spectator
even if he does not understand the words, readily comprehends what is taking place on the stage.

Puccini's conception of diatonic melody is rooted in the tradition of 19th-century Italian opera, but his harmonic and orchestral style
indicate that he was also aware of contemporary developments, notably the work of the Impressionists and of Stravinsky. Though he
allowed the orchestra a more active role, he upheld the traditional vocal style of Italian opera, in which the singers carry the burden
of the music. In many ways a typical fin de siècle artist, Puccini nevertheless can be ranked as the greatest exponent of operatic
realism.
Copyright 1994-1998 Encyclopaedia Britannica
Last Updated on 2020
By Steven Ritchie

And now for the Music

New"Piano excerpts from La Boheme". Sequenced by R.Steven Ritchie.
(2536)"Piano excerpts from Madam Butterfly". Sequenced by R.Steven Ritchie.
Thanks to Ramon Pajares Box for the music below. Email (rpajares@rpajares.net)
New"Tosca, opera, act 3, orchestral selection". Sequenced by Ramon Pajares Box.
(2536)"Orchestral excerpts from the 3rd act of the opera Tosca". Sequenced by Ramon Pajares Box.
New"La Boheme, Musetta,Quando me'n vo, Lento, Mov.1". Sequenced by Bill King.
New"La Boheme, Andantino, Mov.2". Sequenced by Bill King.
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(2150)"Various Scenes from La Boheme". Sequenced by Maurizio Salvi.

(2149)"Various Scenes from La Boheme". Sequenced by Maurizio Salvi.

(254)"Various Scenes from La Boheme". Sequenced by M.Salvi

Thanks to George Pollen for the music below. Check out my bookmark page for his website.
(1429)"Senza Mamma from the opera Sister Angelica". Sequenced by George Pollen

(580)"E Lucevan le Stelle" from the opera "Tosca". Sequenced by Paulo Norberg

(581)"Vissi d'arte, vissi d'amore-da Tosca". Sequenced by Marco Milano

(582)"Vecchia zimarra, senti-da 'La Boheme'. Sequenced by Marco Milano

(2151)"Various Scenes from La Boheme" .Sequenced by Marco Milano.

(1411)"Turandot, Mov.1". Sequencer Unknown

(1412)"Turandot, Mov.2". Sequencer Unknown

(1406)"Humming song". Sequencer Unknown

(1407)"Manina". Sequencer Unknown

(1408)"Nessun". Sequencer Unknown

(155)"Various Scenes from La Boheme,(Info by Ed)". Sequencer Unknown

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