65. Crisantemi

Puccini said that he wrote the string quartet in one single night in memory of Amedeo di Savoia (see Carteggi 1958 No. 36 of 6 February 1890). Amedeo (1845-1890) was the second son of the Italian king Vittorio Emanuele II. From 1871 to 1873, he was King of Spain, and he returned to Italy after his abdication, where he enjoyed great popularity among the people.
The piece must have been completed immediately after Amedeo’s death (on 18 January 1890), for the first performance, by the Quartetto Campanari, took place as early as 26 January (see the Gazzetta musicale of 2 February 1890, pp. 71-72, according to which Campanari himself commissioned the work).Note: *For additional newspaper articles, see Magri 1999.  The success was so great that the quartet had to be repeated in the concert. Another performance took place on 31 January in Brescia, again by the Quartetto Campanari.Note: *See the newspaper reports quoted by Michael Elphinstone in Quaderni 1996, pp. 116-119.
The Quartetto Campanari was founded during a European tour by Leandro Campanari (1857-1939), a violinist who prior to the tour and again thereafter was predominantly active in the United States. Another member of the ensemble was Guglielmo Andreoli, who a few years earlier had arranged Puccini’s Tre Minuetti (61) for piano for four hands (see 61.E.1a).
The thematic material of the quartet determines the great duet in Act 4 of Manon Lescaut (64) and also appears as an anticipation of that music in Act 3 of the opera. This is a conspicuous difference to Puccini’s usual practice of reusing only older and unknown pieces. Perhaps we may conclude from this that Crisantemi was sort of an advance ancillary use of some of the music for the opera that was being written simultaneously. At that time, Puccini was composing the first act of Manon Lescaut, and perhaps the death of the popular Amedeo di Savoia inspired him to write the sad music for the opera.
After its first performance, Crisantemi was rarely performed again during Puccini’s lifetime. Only one performance (arranged for a larger string orchestra, conducted by Nicolò Van Westerhout) is documented: on 9 July 1893 at the branch of Ricordi in Naples (see the Gazzetta musicale of 16 and 30 July 1893, pp. 488 and 517).