Program Notes

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Chrysanthemums (1890)

Notes for: July 26, 2005

Puccini’s fame rests of course on his great operas – notably La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly and Turandot. He also wrote a handful of orchestral and chamber works, including this oddity for string quartet, Chrysanthemums, composed in 1890 when he was still a struggling composer.

According to Puccini’s own account, he wrote the work “in a single night for the death of Amedeo of Savoia.” Known in the United States as Amadeus of Savoy, Amedeo was the third son of Victor Emmanuel II, king first of Sardinia-Piedmont and later of Italy. Amedeo was a national figure in his own right, fighting heroically against Austrian rule of northern Italy in the Risorgimento and later serving as the invited King of Spain for three years before returning home to participate in the politics of united Italy.

Chrysanthemums consists of two elegiac themes set out in an A-B-A design. The first is restless with chromatic (half-step) harmonies. The second is more poignant, over a sustained tonic note.

Puccini later used both themes in his opera Manon Lescaut.

Copyright © 2005 by Willard J. Hertz