One day he was speaking to me in glowing terms about Puccini. And being the silly, impertinent young man I was, I started to sneer. At that Ravel flew into a towering rage, locked us both into his little studio at Monfort l’Amaury and sat down at the piano. He then played me the whole of Tosca from memory, stopping about 50 times on the way to ask: “Have you anything to complain of about that passage? Look how good the harmony is, how he respects the form, what a clever, original, and interesting modulation there is in that tune.” Finally he took down the score to show me how perfect the orchestration is. He said, “This is exactly what I did with Le tombeau de Couperin: this economy of means by which two solo instruments in Puccini’s orchestra produce such an impact — that is the mark of a great artist.”Nordlinger adds, quite correctly, "I have long observed that there are two groups of people who love Puccini: common folk and true musicians (e.g., other composers). The only people who are anti-Puccini are middlebrows, idiot middlebrows, who have been told by someone, somewhere, that Puccini is sappy, sentimental, and insubstantial. They think they are expressing a sophistication by running down this remarkable composer."
I must confess that I have myself formerly deprecated Puccini in a similar vein. His composition was so wholly oriented towards stage drama, and he was so expert at composing to that end, that it is easy to overlook the mastery behind his musics thunderbolt immediacy. Some composers, Mozart for instance (who is also often criticized by the middlebrow for being "childish" and "predictable"), make sure you are well aware of a piece's virtuosity, never letting you forget all the craft and artistry on display from both composer and performer. Puccini's craft doesn't dazzle, it goes right for the gut. It matches the drama so perfectly, you can easily forget it's there at all. Many people are made uncomfortable by the fact that music grips them so directly but they can't explain how; it can be easier to dismiss stunningly emotive music as "sentimental." Puccini didn't write to amuse philosophers, but avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma.
