Puccini was a composer who had an incredible gift for scene setting, or 'painting a picture' in order to achieve the perfect sonic environment for the dramatic situations provided by his librettists. A brilliant master of orchestration the composer used every color at his disposal in order to get the right effect. Hence, adjectives like 'sparkling', 'bright' and 'colorful' are often used to describe Puccini's operatic scores. In fact the scores became brighter and more brilliant as he evolved compositionally, to the logical conclusion of Turandot with its myriad oriental and exotic elements. Tosca may not be quite so brilliant in comparison, but it certainly has that unmistakable quality of orchestral sheen that we have come to expect from these operas.
Tosca was not well received by the critics at the time of its première, primarily because of the 'sordid', violent nature of its story and for what must have seemed to be the rather 'brutal' music created by Puccini to match the story. But what those critics failed to appreciate was the tightness of the opera's musical structure and what superb control Puccini utilized to tell his story perfectly in every detail. The reason for this 'tightness of structure' can be found in the various compositional techniques that Puccini used consistently throughout his career. Let's take a look at some of those techniques and find examples in the score of Tosca so that you can listen for them in performance.
Tone-Painting
There are many wonderful examples of 'tone-painting' in Tosca,
where the composer describes an emotional state, a scenic setting or a dramatic
action through musical means. A wonderful instance of this can be found in the
prelude to Act III. Dawn is breaking over Rome and we find ourselves in the
confines of the rooftop of the Castel Sant'Angelo on the banks of the Tiber
River. It is a pastoral scene at first, providing a bit of a rest from the violence
and bloodshed of the preceding act. A shepherd boy passes by and we actually
hear the awkward gait of his animals, the clanking of a bell hanging from the
neck of his guard dog, and the boy singing a song in country dialect. Slowly
we feel a transition in the orchestra, a lightening of color as the sun comes
up; and then we hear the bells and chimes of the various churches, convents
and monasteries in the area as they call the faithful to morning prayer and
mass. Puccini went to great lengths to notate the exact pitches of these
bells as he heard them during an early morning visit to the actual Roman location.
There is yet another transition as the music actually darkens and thickens
in texture. We hear the first statement of the great tune from Act III of this
opera, the tenor aria E lucevan le stelle (And the stars were shining),
accompanied by the sound of the great bell in the cupola of St. Peter's. This
is almost a series of cinematic moments: imagine the camera as it moves from
following the shepherd to an aerial shot over the Castel Sant'Angelo overlooking
the city, and then to a dark, interior shot as we join the brooding, near-despairing
Cavaradossi.
These moments of tone-painting in Puccini are specific and highly detailed. They can be likened to a canvas by a great painter like David, Delacroix or Manet. Transitions between tonal colors or textures are quick but subtle, surrounding the principal characters in the work with a deftly drawn emotional context while at the same time pointing to specific objects, characters or psychological states that are present in the scene. Other moments in the opera come to mind: the entrance of Tosca wherein the pizzicato strings tell us everything we need to know about her state of being at that moment; the dark and violent 'twists' in the basses and lower winds during the torture of Cavaradossi in Act II, drawing an all-too-specific picture of the device being used on him; the lengthy interlude at the end of the same act during which Tosca finds her salvation through the discovery of a knife. These are all moments that exhibit Puccini's supreme mastery of musical description.
The Leitmotif
We can't truly call what Puccini does with short, suggestive motives anything
like a "leitmotif system", certainly not in the Wagnerian sense. But he comes
as close as any Italian composer would dare to the German composer's unique
method of providing unity to his sprawling works. In Wagner's case, these musical
ideas were brief, pithy, powerful nuggets of melody attached to a character,
object or psychological state in an opera that would develop musically in
direct relationship to the psychological or emotional development of the character
through the course of the opera. Therein lies the difference: Puccini's
leitmotifs don't develop. They remain static throughout the course of
an opera or, at least, don't develop as much as their Wagnerian counterparts.
The most famous example of Puccini's use of any kind of leitmotif is surely the Scarpia motive that dominates the score of Tosca. It is also the easiest motive to identify as it is essentially the first two bars of the opera. The motive is unusual in that it is really not a melody or melodic fragment at all; it is, rather, a series of three sinister-sounding chords blared fortissimo from the full orchestra. Being that this motive is the first thing Puccini wants us to hear as an audience, he's telling us that the dynamic force in this opera entitled Tosca is really Scarpia, the villain. We don't hear the motive again until Scarpia's actual entrance, as he descends upon the poor sacristan in the church of Sant'Andrea della Valle in his search for the escaped prisoner, Angelotti. After this entrance, however, we're never many measures away from the 'Scarpia motive' or a variant of it. Listen, for instance, to the music which accompanies Scarpia's conversation with the sacristan immediately after his explosive entrance. The whole dialogue is underpinned by a development of the motive, those three chords virtually everywhere.
The three-chord idea becomes a descending three-note idea at the very beginning of Act II as we are ushered into Scarpia's apartments in the Palazzo Farnese. Here, in Scarpia's Baroque and sumptuous domestic environment, the brutal chords of the original motive seem out of place (at least until the torture and questioning of Cavaradossi begins!), and transformed, the motive takes on a more elegant nature echoing the outward charm of the man. At the end of the act, as Scarpia lies on the floor of his apartment in a pool of his own blood, his sinister presence is hinted at by the playing of the motive once again, this time slowly by the strings in a low, hollow register. His motive is there again even in the prelude to Act III, just prior to the shepherd's song. Puccini is telling us that even after his death, Scarpia will continue to exert his evil influence on the development of the plot.
Melodic Shape
One of the most remarkable and most unifying features of Puccini's music is
his melodic style, the way he shapes his melodies. It is this aspect of his
compositional style which we find most accessible about Puccini's music, most
identifiable. Almost all of his melodies are memorable because of the way
they are built. And the most memorable of his tunes are conjunct melodies
which 1) move in scale-wise motion with consecutive melodic steps; and 2) feature
the use of occasional small melodic leaps. Most children's songs and folk melodies
are built this way and are, by design, easy to remember. Take, for example,
the melody for Mary Had A Little Lamb. This is a perfectly conjunct melody
which moves entirely in step-wise motion until the last three syllables of the
first half of the tune: "Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, LIT-TLE LAMB".
The notes on "LIT-TLE LAMB" are a small leap up; every other melodic
motion in the tune is made through consecutive note movement or steps.
The tune Three Blind Mice is also conjunct, with mostly step-wise movement,
but with considerably more leaping than in Mary…. One may wonder
why these simple tunes are so memorable, but it is simply because of this conjunct
movement that we find them relatively easy to recall.
Puccini's greatest melodies are built in much the same way. Large leaps or dissonances in the melodic line (not in the harmonies, which are often full of discord) are generally avoided, and step-wise motion with occasional leaps of three, four or five notes becomes the rule. Think, again, of the big tune from Act III of Tosca, the tenor aria E lucevan le stelle. It begins with a melodic leap of four notes, then arcs up and down in step-wise motion, almost outlining a simple scale. And speaking of scales, that is exactly what the voice outlines in the next phrase: a long, achingly beautiful ascending scale. And so it goes, a melody built very simply from leaps of a fourth or fifth, combined with scale-like passages. It seems a dull affair indeed to write about this, or to speak of it. But when you listen to it, realize the formulaic nature of Puccini's gift, and then accept that this tune has always been one of your most beloved memories of the operatic répertoire the genius of it begins to communicate itself to you. Apply this same formula to any other of Puccini's great melodies…from La bohème, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly…and you begin to wonder how it was possible for this composer to come up with so many staggeringly beautiful melodies by following what is essentially an ancient melodic pattern.
_____________________________________
NOTE: The richness of the orchestration is made possible by the many
different instruments called for in the score: two flutes and one piccolo, two
oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns,
three trumpets, four trombones, harp, tympani, Glockenspiel, bells, contrabassoon,
tam-tam, celeste, deep bell, organ, organ, cannon and gun shots. In addition
there is a banda of flutes, viola, harp, four horns, three trombones, and two
small drums.