Canto d’anime (1904)

Written between Tosca and Madama Butterfly to a text by Luigi Illica, his favourite librettist at the time, Puccini’s Canto d’anime reverberates, inevitably, with operatic associations. The thrilling use of the voice, the expressive turn of phrase, the emotional pressure of the harmonies, all these qualities are unmistakably characteristic features of the Puccini we know best. Canto d’anime is not, however, an aria but pure song and perhaps even, in its match of stirring melody and devout poetic sentiment, the best of the mere dozen or so examples he had time to write.