Puccinis Preludio a Orchestra

Until this discovery the history of the Preludio, as with other early works by Puccini, had taken a rather convoluted path. Let’s go back to the beginning for a moment, to the 1870s, the time in which the Preludio was composed. The younthful Puccini was a pupil at Istituto Pacini, a prestigious music school in his home town of Lucca, where he received excellent training in his craft. Here he wrote his first surviving compositions: short pieces for piano or organ, some of which were combined into cycles, a few vocal works with instrumental accompaniment in various scorings – including the most important testimony to his schooldays, his Messa a 4 voci SC 6 – and, last but not least, his Preludio a Orchestra, which he completed on August 5, 1876.

It’s a remarkable witness to this very early creative stage of Puccini’s career, featuring some recognizable characteristics: a richness of invention regarding the main melodic ideas, harmonies infused with occasional strict chromaticism, and a noticeable willingness to rise above conventional principles of form and structure in favor of trying out new solutions, for example, in the creative, varied treatment of the main theme. Michele Girardi summarizes: “Not least, the Preludio a Orchestra shows, precisely in the unconventional treatment of form and the use of orchestral timbres, how Puccini, at that time still completely untouched by the theory and practice of great Italian and European music, brought a natural and quite extraordinary talent to composing. For this reason, too, the work should not be underestimated in its significance.” (Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Giacomo Puccini, Vol. II/1 [Carus 56.002], p. XVIII)

Whether the work was ever performed at the time cannot be said with certainty, but since there is no evidence at all hinting at a performance, it would seem unlikely that one ever took place.