An unknown page by Puccini: Dios y Patria (God and Homeland)

An unknown page by Puccini:
Dios y Patria (God and Homeland)
Gustavo Gabriel Otero y Daniel Varacalli Costas*
The travel of Giacomo Puccini to Argentina, which took place between June 23rd
and August 8th 1905, invited by the newspaper La Prensa (at that time owned by
the Paz family) was not motivated, in principle, by musical purposes.
His visit to Buenos Aires span for forty seven days and was eminently planned
as a kind of holiday. La Prensa´s edition of 25th June 1905 states that Puccini
would not conduct any of his works at the Opera […] his visit is based on pleasure
and on his desire to know this land where his music has made such a long way; he has
no intention of conducting any concert or working until he leaves Buennos Aires.
His only musical mission was to prepare, introduce and attend the
performances of his definitive version of the opera Edgar in the Teatro de la
Ópera, which had programmed simultaneously Manon Lescaut, La bohème,
Tosca and Madama Butterfly, with the best casts of that time and under the
baton of maestro Leopoldo Mugnone.
In spite of the non musical purpose of the travel, we were able to discover a
work composed by Puccini in Argentina, which may be classified among the very
few scores not dedicated to the operatic genre in his catalogue.
The non operatic works by Puccini
Giacomo Puccini owes his worldwide fame to his operas. His other compositions,
either instrumental or vocal, are essays of youth or pages of circumstance which
slightly surpass the forty works. The endeavour of researchers and recording
companies has been useful to bring forth these non operatic scores of the maestro
of Lucca.
There are doubts about the authenticity of two works for piano dated in New
York in 1907 or 1910, denominated Piccolo Tango and Foglio d’album; it is
deemed to be missing the waltz Prime fantasie (1879), together with the romance
for tenor and piano Ah se potesse (1882) and the composition for baritone and
piano Melanconia, upon text of Antonio Ghislanzoni (1883). On the other hand,
the hymn I figli dell’Italia bella (1877), also considered to be missing, was
*
This short article is a new elaboration and enhancing of the chapter God and Homeland: an
argentine musical page by Puccini of the volume Puccini en la Argentina. Junio – agosto de 1905
(Puccini in Argentina. June – August 1905) by Gustavo Gabriel Otero and Daniel Varacalli
Costas. Declared of cultural interest by the Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires
(Resolución 19/2006). Published in Buenos Aires (Argentina) in May 2006 by the Instituto
Italiano de Cultura de Buenos Aires (ISBN 987-22800-0-02).
OTERO Y VARACALLI COSTAS, An unknown page by Puccini
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reconstructed by the bishop Emilio Maggini, based on documents of Simonetta
Puccini, the maestro´s granddaughter. She commissioned the work of
reconstruction, which raised widespread polemics. The score was premiered in
Lucca, under the title of Cessato il suon dell'armi on June 6th 2003.
Dios y Patria: a score composed in Argentina
The research about Giacomo Puccini´s visit to Argentina made surprisingly
possible to run across a composition written by the maestro in Buenos Aires.
The page named Dios y Patria (God and homeland) is a school hymn which lyrics
belong to Matías Calandrelli (1845-1919), at that time a journalist of the
newspaper La Prensa, which commissioned this composition to Puccini during his
stay in Buenos Aires.
Professor Calandrelli was nothing of a minor personality in Argentina at that
historic moment. Country fellow of Puccini, he was born in Salerno en 1845 and
came to Buenos Aires in 1871 to enlarge the educational plans of Domingo
Faustino Sarmiento, then President of the Argentine Nation. He had headed one
of his books – Quiroga, Aldao, El Chacho. 1845-1863 – with a letter that had
sent to him concerning his pedagogic labour and his intense public activity.
Author of numerous works about Grammar, Philology, Literature and History,
Calandrelli worked as a journalist for El Diario and La Prensa, besides many
periodic publications of the Italian community in Argentina, and also as a teacher
and a writer.
The publication of Dios y Patria
The lyrics and music of Dios y Patria were published by the newspaper La Prensa
in its edition of August 15th1905 (second section, page 13), with the facsimile
reproduction of the beginning and the end of Puccini´s autograph, the maestro´s
signature in both parts and the date and place at the end – «Buenos Aires, August
3rd1905» –, also with the composer´s handwriting.
The procedure of inserting scores in papers and magazines was very popular
at that time and inside the production of the Tuscan composer it is possible to
find many scores published in that way, such as Storiella d’amore (La musica
popolare, II/40, 1883), Sole e amore (Il Paganini, II/23, 1888), Inno a Diana
(Sant’Uberto, 1898), Terra e Mare (Novissima 1902), Sogno d’or (Noi e il
Mondo, 1913), «Ecce Sacerdos magnus» (L’Esare, Lucca, March 25th1905) and
Piccolo Valzer (Armi e arte, Genova, September 1894), among others.
The text of Calandrelli follows the rhetorical language of that time through a
prism typically nationalist, which anticipates the forthcoming decades (it
resembles in some aspects Puccini´s Inno a Roma). The music, in C Major, in
tempo Andante dignitoso, spins through 19 bars (18 and the last, a closing one)
in 3/4 alternating with 2/4, with repetition of a ritornello, and shows simple lines,
adequate to be sung at schools.
La Prensa in its edition of August 15th 1905 explains the process of gestation
of the work in the following way:
More than once LA PRENSA has treated on the subject of the influence of music
upon school life [...]. During Puccini´s stay in our country we talked with him about
OTERO Y VARACALLI COSTAS, An unknown page by Puccini
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our desire of cooperating in the concocting of this improvement for the Argentine
school, and invited him to help us with his valuable artistic inspiration; since, even
when it is true that our primary schools keep children´s choruses, it was convenient,
from our point of view, that the lyrics and music of these songs were commissioned to
people capable to communicate all the elevation proper of the simplicity that
characterize the taste and feelings of childhood [...]. The maestro accepted with polite
deference our desire, and composed the music for a hymn entitled God and
Homeland, written to this purpose by doctor Matías Calandrelli, one of the
journalists of LA PRENSA. In the publication that we effect today of this page, we
introduce the hymn´s first stanza, followed by the music, and then the rest of the text
to be sung.
The newspaper sent this composition to the Consejo Nacional de Educación
(Nacional Board of Education of Argentina) in order that it would approve it to
be sung at schools. Consulting the annals of the Board (dissolved in 1978), in the
Library of the Ministry of Education of Argentina, it was not possible to find the
necessary approval that would have allowed this hymn to be sung at schools.
Therefore, the logical conclusion is that the page remained without being
premiered and that has not been published until today in no other place than in
the before mentioned edition of La Prensa.
It is also curious that Dios y Patria had not been printed the last day of
Puccini´s stay in Buenos Aires (August 8th) but on the edition of August15th 1905.
Apparently, the date initially fixed for the maestro´s departure of Argentina was
the 16th August on the Umbria. Nevertheless, the possibility to visit Montevideo
(Uruguay) eventually led Puccini to leave Buenos Aires on 8th August and to get
on board of the Umbria on the 17th, but on the other side of the River Plate.
Surely the date on which the composition was handed (August 3rd) and the
timetable for the edition of the score, making allowance for the change of the
date of departure, made the publication impossible until August 15th (when it may
have been originally programmed, as a homage of farewell). That is the reason
why it remained hidden to researchers, who logically concluded their work when
the maestro´s visit to Argentina came to an end.
Now we had this gem which with great satisfaction we are able to reveal and
reproduce, and which, according to the most up-to-date catalogues, is the only
one of Puccini´s compositions based on a text in Spanish, and the only school
hymn of his output.
Dios y Patria had its première in Buenos Aires on 17th May 2006 in the Salón
Dorado de la Casa de la Cultura of the City of Buenos Aires, as a part of the
launching ceremony of the book Puccini en la Argentina. Junio - agosto de 1905
(Puccini in Argentina. June – August 1905) by the authors of this article,
published by the Instituto Italiano de Cultura de Buenos Aires. The book has
been declared of cultural interest by the Legislatura de la Ciudad Autónoma de
Buenos Aires. In the same premises, where on 7th August 1905 took place the
banquet in honour of Puccini´s last day in Argentina, then property of the
newspaper La Prensa, now the voice of baritone Omar Carrión and the piano of
José Luis Juri gave life to this work by Puccini that had curiously remained totally
forgotten.
OTERO Y VARACALLI COSTAS, An unknown page by Puccini
DIOS y PATRIA
Un nimbo de gloria,
De luz y de flores,
En estos albores
De mi juventud.
Corone las sienes
De vírgenes almas:
Merecen las palmas
Candor y virtud
La patria y Dios
Me han dado el ser,
Mente y saber
En galardón
Cumple adorar.
En el altar
Del corazón
La niña estudiosa.
En ansia inocente
Cultiva la mente
Con férvido amor.
Capullo de rosa
Al mundo se asoma,
Esparce su aroma,
Su gracia y candor
La patria y Dios
Me han dado el ser,
Mente y saber
En galardón
Cumple adorar.
En el altar
Del corazón
Hoy risa y ternura
Y madre mañana,
Más, madre espartana
De temple viril.
Muy pronto á la Patria,
Sus hijos ofrenda
La más bella prenda
De su alma gentil.
La patria y Dios
Me han dado el ser,
Mente y saber
En galardón
Cumple adorar.
En el altar
Del corazón
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OTERO Y VARACALLI COSTAS, An unknown page by Puccini
Los niños emulan
La fuerza y la gloria
Que graba en la historia
El patrio valor;
Y padres un día
De fuertes varones
En sus corazones
Infundan valor
La patria y Dios
Me han dado el ser,
Mente y saber
En galardón
Cumple adorar.
En el altar
Del corazón
La raza, la fama,
La antigua pujanza,
La fé, la esperanza,
Su culto tendrán;
Y en tiempos cercanos
Más bellos y amenos
Felices serenos
Los días serán.
La patria y Dios
Me han dado el ser,
Mente y saber
En galardón
Cumple adorar.
En el altar
Del corazón
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