Turandot Puccini. He left behind 36 pages of sketches on 23 sheets for the end of "Turandot". Some sketches were in the form of "piano-vocal" or "short score," including vocal lines with "two to four staves of accompaniment with occasional notes on orchestration." These sketches supplied music for some, but not all, of the final portion of the libretto. Puccini left instructions that Riccardo Zandonai should finish the opera. Puccini's son Tonio objected, and eventually Franco Alfano was chosen to flesh out the sketches after Vincenzo Tommasini (who had completed Boito's "Nerone" after the composer's death) and Pietro Mascagni were rejected.
Turandot Stampa" recorded the words slightly differently: "Qui finisce l'opera, rimasta incompiuta per la morte del povero Puccini/Here the opera ends, left incomplete by the death of poor Puccini." It is also frequently reported that Toscanini said, more poetically, "Here the Maestro laid down his pen". A newspaper report published the day before the premiere states that Puccini himself gave Toscanini the suggestion to stop the opera performance at the final notes composed by Puccini: .<br> (A few weeks before his death, after having made Toscanini listen to the opera, Puccini exclaimed: "If I don't succeed in finishing it, at this