89. Morire?

This song, with a very philosophical text by Giuseppe Adami, was Puccini’s contribution to an album of music dedicated to the Italian Queen Elena. The proceeds from the sale of the volume were used to benefit the Italian Red Cross. It also contains compositions by all of the other most prominent Italian composers of the day: Arrigo Boito, Alberto Franchetti, Umberto Giordano, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni, and Riccardo Zandonai.
In August 1918, Puccini adapted virtually all of the very melancholy music of Morire? as the basis for Ruggero’s romanza in praise of the allures of Paris, which Puccini added in the second version of La Rondine (see 83) — a transformation as strange as Puccini’s reuse of the Agnus Dei from his Messa (6) for the madrigal in the second act of Manon Lescaut (64).