Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Collection of autograph music manuscripts for piano (a few for organ), including marches, waltzes, a collection of dances and other works, one of them signed ('Giacomo Puccini'), n.d. [c.1875-1883]
Keyboard works from Puccini's impoverished youth.

The collection includes: a piano work in G major, signed at end, one page, 222 x 287mm; organ work in G major, one page, 223 x 285mm; a 'Tempo di Valser' for piano in A major, 2 pages, 286 x 214mm, a 'Marcia' for piano in G major, one page, 293 x 224mm, a collection of dances for piano in G major and D major, one marked 'cornetto strombe', on green paper, 3 pages, 236 x 303mm, bifolium; and 12 other autograph manuscripts (some incomplete) for piano or organ, the majority in G major;

altogether approx. 24 pages in autograph, many in purple ink, seven of the manuscripts with music in another hand on the verso; with one other manuscript. Provenance: Sotheby's, 18 November 1988, lot 424.

Puccini began his musical life early, following in the family tradition as an organist in churches in and around Lucca: 'When he was 17 he began composing in earnest, writing organ pieces that were largely the result of improvisations into which he worked, much to the surprise of the congregation, snatches from Tuscan folksongs and from operas such as Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata' (New Grove). The present keyboard works are likely to date from this period, and perhaps from his early years in Milan (1880 to 1883), when his experience of student poverty was later to inspire the depiction of artistic life in La bohème. Apparently unpublished.