2024 is a year to remember for lovers of opera throughout the world. One hundred years ago one of the most popular composers of this often lavish and exotic art form died from an unsuccessful operation for his throat cancer (he was a fifty-a-day person for most of his life) at a Brussels clinic.
Lucca, Puccini’s birthplace, is celebrating its enviable cultural export with a panoply of events.
Our town of Bagni di Lucca is also commemorating this universal composer whose music speaks to all feeling hearts.
This beautiful place nestling in the Tuscan Apennines, has ever been a haunt for those in quest of its miraculous waters. From mediaeval countesses to illuminist philosophers to romantic poets guests have included Matilda di Canossa, Montagne, Byron, Shelley, Heine and Elisa Bonaparte.
Giacomo Puccini was also a guest here. As a penniless student he came to earn a crust of bread playing the piano for dances at the casino. Indeed Puccini’s first commission and his debut as a composer came thanks to our local chemist.
To celebrate this Bagni di Lucca is presenting a series of three concerts, one each for Puccini’s choral, organ and piano music respectively.
Yesterday afternoon our local cultural association, the Michel De Montaigne Foundation held the first one.
The concert opened with ‘Beata Viscera’, for two female voices, which Giacomo composed in 1875, dedicating it to his sister Iginia who had become a nun that year. The very short composition was only found last year in the Lucca archives by Aldo Berti and ascribed to Giacomo Puccini. Yesterday was its first modern performance. ‘Beata Viscera’ is a slight piece but its simple lyricism foretells what is to come.
The motet ‘Vexilla Regis Prodeunt’ followed. Dating from1878 it was commissioned by local chemist Adelson Betti who was also organist of our parish church of San Pietro of Corsena. The young Puccini received a supper with the Betti chemist’s family, his train fare and a slice of chestnut cake for his efforts. We have sung this piece with our local choir in the church at Corsena for which it was destined. The second part of the motet’s ternary form appealed to me but otherwise I was unimpressed by its often cheesy harmonies.
The third piece was the ‘Salve Regina’, for soprano and organ, composed in 1883 on a text by Antonio Ghislanzoni, Verdi’s librettist and bohemian poet. It cannot be defined as a piece of sacred music since the text is not liturgical but described as a sacred poem. The composition was also considered by its composer to be suitable for inclusion in his first opera, the one acter ‘Le Villi’.
The Mass for strings, four solos, choir and orchestra, written in 1735 by Giacomo Puccini senior, founder of the Puccini musical family line, formed the largest piece in the concert. Its performance here was intended as a tribute to a dynasty of musicians active in Lucca for five generations. Indeed starting with Giacomo Puccini Senior and rather like other musical families, in particular Bach’s, music remained the principal career for Puccini’s family until 1924.
In this Vivaldian-style composition, a Missa Brevis consisting of only Kyrie and Gloria, the great-great-grandfather of opera composer Giacomo, demonstrates in my opinion, amazing mastery of baroque musical language with lively arias, impressive choral fugues and creative instrumental accompaniments. Indeed Giacomo Senior can now be certainly recognized as among the best Italian composers of the late baroque period just as it was merging into the classic Mozart-Haydn period. Kapellmeister of the Serenissima Republic of Lucca, and known throughout Italy, Giacomo Senior made use of the services of excellent local musicians who were joined, on special occasions, by professionals from other regions and duchies of an Italy prior to its unification.
(The Giacomo Puccini Senior Mass – second half)
It was just as well that the programme was rearranged to include the Mass as the next-to-last piece. To have performed it at the start, though chronologically apt, would have unduly brought out the jejunesse of opera-Puccini’s early church compositions.
The concert closed with the Requiem, for choir, organ and solo viola, which Giacomo Puccini, operatic composer, wrote in 1905 at the request of the publisher Ricordi on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s death. I found it a very heartfelt, moving piece, a true masterpiece with a touching viola solo played by Caterina Mancini..
The concert performers included the Santa Felicita di Lucca String Quintet (Alberto Bologni and Valeria Barsanti, violins; Caterina Mancini, viola; Francesca Gaddi, cello; Gabriele Ragghianti, double bass). Daniele Boccaccio played the organ. The choir was the Nova Harmonia vocal ensemble under choir master Paola Vincenti. Soloists were Nunzia Fazzi soprano, Michela Mazzanti contralto, Adriano Gulino tenor, Nicola Farnesi bass. The conductor was Giorgio Fazzi. The artistic director was Silvano Pieruccini.
All-in-all the performers were well up to the task of letting the audience hear this rarely music to a high standard. (This in spite of a dramatic moment during the Puccini Senior Mass when a choir member fainted with a resounding thud on the platform and the performance had to be paused. Fortunately he was all right and the Mass was able to continue.) All soloists were excellent, the female ones particularly so and the strings were good.
