A little Tango

A tango written by Giacomo Puccini? Indeed! In 1942 'Piccolo Tango' by the Italian opera composer was published by an American music publisher. The question as to whether it was actually composed by Puccini has not been confirmed - but the heirs had the work protected by copyright, thus confirming Puccini's authorship. In the years 1907 and 1910 the composer took one trip each to the United States. It might be possible that Puccini wrote the little tango on that occasion, thus showing his reverence to the host country with bold jazzy harmonies. And he was not the only classical composer who dared to take an excursion into the realm of entertaining music, for even fellow composers such as Igor Stravinsky or Kurt Weill, Erwin Schulhoff or Isaac Albéniz were tempted to compose a tango too.