32. Preludio sinfonico

Puccini wrote this work for the final examination of the academic year 1881-1882 at the Milan Conservatory in Professor Antonio Bazzini’s composition class.
According to Elphinstone’s very thorough and astute studies, there were different phases of work on the piece:

1. the composition of the original score (for its components see 32.B.1);
2. the production of the instrumental parts with the participation of several copyists, during which numerous alterations were made to the original composition, particularly the substantial cut (see 32.B.2);
3. the production of the fair copy of the full score by a copyist (see 32.C.1).

The differences between the fair copy of the full score and the instrumental parts (at least the autograph parts) suggest mistakes by the copyist (see Elphinstone’s listing in Quaderni 1992, pp. 148-162). That is understandable when one considers that Michele Puccini was then only 18 years old.
Large portions of the work were reused in Puccini’s first two operas. The passage already cut before the first performance of the Preludio sinfonico became the postlude to the introductory chorus of Le Villi (see 60, from fig. 13). In addition, 51 bars (i.e. nearly one third of the entire piece) were incorporated in the first version of Act 2 of Edgar (see 62), but were subsequently deleted, together with the whole scene in which they were included, for the opera’s reworking in 1891-1892 (for details see Quaderni 1992, pp. 142-143, Cesari 1994, pp. 687–689, and Cesari in Biagi Ravenni and Gianturco 1997, pp. 451-452).
Often in literature about the composer, this composition is confused with the Preludio a Orchestra in E minor (see 1), which dates from Puccini’s student days in Lucca.