Appendix II.2. Paraphrase from Tosca for four violoncelli

The dedicatee Ferruccio Pagni was a painter and one of Puccini’s closest friends in Torre del Lago. At the beginning of 1904, Pagni emigrated to Argentina (see his recollections in Marotti and Pagni 1926). 
None of Ricordi’s advertisements for their numerous transcriptions and arrangements of separate pieces from Tosca (69) mention this version, so it was certainly produced for private reasons and is the only known piece of this kind by Puccini himself.