This
month on Clef Notes, our topic is Unfinished Music: The Mystery Remains. We’ve
discussed this topic once before, but we only touched the surface of music that
falls into this category. Let’s continue to explore the topic over the next few
weeks.
Throughout
history, there are many examples of compositions by well-known composers that,
for various reasons, were left unfinished. For obvious reasons, this idea of
unfinished music by some of the “greats” in music history is intriguing which
is why scholars seek to find answers for their abandonment. While historians
have been able to find adequate answers for many incomplete works, others still
leave us with a sense of speculation.
The
unfinished work I’d like to look at this week has a very obvious reason why it
was abandoned—the composer’s death. Giacomo Puccini's (1858–1924) final opera, Turandot, used Carlo Gozzi’s play Turandotte as its source. The story is
set in China and based on folk stories of a princess who uses riddles to test
her suitors and to deem whether or not they are worthy to have her hand in
marriage. For those who answer any of the riddles incorrectly, she has them
killed. The opera is one of Puccini’s greatest, containing some of the most
beloved opera arias of all time including “Nessun dorma!”
Puccini
worked alongside two librettists for his Turandot:
Renato Simoni and Giuseppe Adami. After completing the orchestration for the
first two acts by 1924, including a large orchestra with organ and exotic
Chinese themes, Puccini decided he was unhappy with the text for the final love
duet in Act III. He envisioned the finale to his opera to be grand, with a big,
memorable duet scene. The text the librettists provided just wasn’t what he had
in mind for the powerful ending he hoped to achieve.
Unfortunately,
Puccini died before he ever had the opportunity to work with his librettists to
complete the ending to Turandot.
After undergoing surgery to help fight throat cancer in 1924, Puccini suffered
a heart attack and died. But what would happen to his masterpiece that he left
unfinished? Join me next time for the rest of the story.
