PUCCINI MESSA FUN FACTS

Everyone loves a good mystery.  I enjoy Arthur Conan Doyle, David Baldacci, Daniel Silva and other novels of the same ilk.  Good stuff.

Puccini came from a musical family - and a family that had been employed in church music for over 100 years.  Choosing a church composition as a senior project was a natural for the young Puccini.  He composed most of the Messa that we're performing in October in 1880 and it was premiered in the same year.  It was probably not performed again until 1952!  Why?  Was Puccini embarrassed by it - as a youthful work full of ideas and techniques that he'd left behind?  Most writers think not.  He just moved quickly on, shortly becoming an opera sensation, and the work remained unpublished. 

Around 1952, it was rediscovered, performed again, and published, but that wasn't the end of the mystery.  The scholar that "found" the score thought he had the original, but it turned out to be only a good copy.  A copy that he managed to get published by Mills, however!  Apparently, the Puccini family still had the original and gave it to Ricordi, Puccini's publisher.  Then, Ricordi sued Mills Publishing and a struggle ensued to determine who owned the rights to the work. Intrigue, indeed.

You might be interested to know that the scores from which the choir will be singing are from Belwin-Mills, descended from the 1952 "original copy" - - - but the orchestra will be reading scores from Ricordi.  The mystery, and subsequent compromise, continues.

I know it's not on the level of a Sherlock Holmes novel, but it is, nevertheless, a little interesting.