In this special session, four scholars of Puccini and musical form come together to devote sustained attention to a single aspect of Puccini's late style: his endings. Drawing on recent developments in Puccini studies and form theory, we seek, through analysis, to paint a fuller picture of the ways that the music of Puccini's climactic finales participates in shaping its dramatic and ideological meanings.

The session consists of three scholarly papers that address the endings of Suor Angelica, Gianni Schicchi, and Act 1 of Turandot. Each paper will be followed by commentary by Puccini scholar Arman Schwartz. The papers have different foci, but all direct the flow of their analytic findings into broader currents of thought, including modernism, mechanization, verismo, cinematic techniques, nostalgia, and pessimism.