50. Quartetto in Re

Some string quartets “per Bazzini” are mentioned in two published letters of Puccini to his mother, dated 9-11 March 1881 and 24 February 1882 (see ENOGP Ep. 1, nos. 10 and 14, pp. 14 and 18). Since the catalogue of Sotheby’s auction of 16/17 May 1991, No. 382, mentions the title page of a “Quartetto in Re”, signed “Giacomo Puccini 1882”, it is probable that only the letter of 24 February 1882 concerns the first movement of the Quartet, the Finale of which was completed in April of the same year, as shown by 50.B.2.
The lack of intermediate movements between the "1° tempo" and the "Finale" led Dieter Schickling to suppose that Puccini might have conceived the Adagio (31) and the Scherzo-Trio (34a): see 50.E.2.