Appendix III.6.A.1
I-PSCmp
Museo Puccini, Celle di Pescaglia, Lucca
(
Carta IV; see Critica 1976, 19 and 27
)
Second leaf of a double leaf, 4° (32 x 28 cm) with 12 staves. Appendix III.5 is written on the first leaf.
1)
9 + 4 + 3 fragmentary bars, F minor, 3/4 (Critica 1976, No. A 6).
The complete piece is found in TMP (old indication: D 12 b/c), where it is indicated as a “Scherzo”. The fragment in I-PSCmp is comprised of the first 9 bars (with a shortened variant at the end), followed by a repeat of bars 7-10 and the last three bars (15-17) of the complete piece before the “Trio” (preserved in its entirety in TMP).
Since this music is written in six parts, this is not a realization of a bass but a separate independent work, doubtless by Michele Puccini Jr, since the last 24 bars of the trio exist in his own handwriting (reproduced in Settimo Giorno, November 1954, 47, the only known publication of a composition by Michele). The autograph manuscript of that work bears Michele’s signature and the date “85 [?]. 6/23 Milano.” According to the corrections in the manuscript, the Settimo Giorno version, indicated as “Gavotta”, certainly predates the TMP version.
It appears that theI-PSCmp fragment is a sketch for that piece. The melody of bars 2-6 matches Cavaradossi’s “L’alba vindice appar” in Act 2 of Tosca (69) (fig. 43+1/4), and it is obvious that Giacomo Puccini made use of his late brother’s manuscript when he was composing Tosca (see also the next movement).
2)
Gavotta: G major, 4/4 alla breve (Critica 1976 No. A 7), 28 bars + one single bar in Michele’s hand (with the indication “Gavotta Tosca,” probably added much later in Giacomo’s handwriting). Puccini used the beginning of this piece for the gavotte in Act 2 of Tosca (from fig. 3, see also the preceding movement).
Evidently Puccini relied on this manuscript either when he first notated the sketches for the second act of Tosca in 1897 or when he drafted the composition of the opera (probably in the first half of 1898, see NOTES to 69). It is very possible that Puccini had been searching in the manuscripts from his student years for a traditional gavotte required by the libretto for Tosca and came upon his brother’s composition. Conveniently, the melody of the first movement was obviously also suitable to him for Cavaradossi’s protest which occurs in the opera shortly after the gavotte.
An incomplete version of the first 16 bars already bearing the title “Gavotta” is found in TMP (old indication: D 24 a), which was probably a sketch for this version in I-PSCmp.