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"I was young, I had a great desire to work and in that friendly city I did not feel abandoned in the least. But piano lessons in those first months were few and a miracle of the most scrupulous economy was needed on the part of my wife just to be able to put a frying pan on the fire every day, and I could not swear that there was always that. The mayor and the gentlemen of the city council who had encouraged me to abandon the wandering life at last took a heroic resolution, and, with the approval of the council, created a post just for me which they had never dreamed of having. It was the post of director of an orchestra school which I had to organize."
Mascagni and Vichi in later years
 Cerignola, 8 April, 1887
"The day on which I received your last letter I got a piano-vocal score of Otello from a gentleman here. I can no longer decide whether it is really so or just the influence of your letter: the fact is that I have found in Otello some things that so resemble my Guglielmo that it scares me. Certainly! later they will all believe, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I am a plagiarist. Believe me, there are some things exactly the same! not so much in the actual phrases, as in the intuition of the sentiment. You only know my Guglielmo a little. That which I have composed after our last meeting is that which most resembles the Otello of Verdi. You will not think, I hope, that I tell you this in boasting or conceit..."
"In all that time I had not ceased to occupy myself with my Ratcliff, indeed, I had almost brought it into port. In 1888, there were only a few scenes to go, but I put the score aside for some time and didn't work on it."
Cerignola, 7 March, 1889
"Perhaps the flame of my faith is extinguished? No! But I am abandoning Ratcliff for now... Last year I went to Naples to see Puccini who was giving Le Villi at the San Carlo. He said to me: 'Guglielmo can never be your first opera; think first of making a name, sacrificing a part of your ideals, and then later you will be ale to make it count for something.' [Very interesting, all this advice from Puccini, whose youthful opera Le Villi could not in any way compare with Mascagni's work, youthful or not. It is also interesting, although probably coincidental, that the father's name in Le Villi is Guglielmo...—JM]
"I make no comment, but ask you if you think these words may have influenced my decision; it is certain that I have suffered for a long time and want to break the chains. Thus the idea to try another opera has gradually taken root in me; but I have waited for a propitious occasion. Now there is just that: the Sonzogno contest for an opera in one act. Do you believe in contests? Meanwhile I am working at my Cavalleria Rusticana with a libretto by Targioni-Tozzetti. The libretto has been done to my specifications; the recitatives are in blank verse . . . "
Bill from the first performance of Guglielmo Ratcliff at La Scala
As Mascagni had said, "there is a Providence for musicians as well as for alcoholics." The première of Cavalleria Rusticana on 17 May, 1890, was the turning point in his career and he immediately found himself a world-famous composer. But the thought of Guglielmo Ratcliff never left him, and after composing the operas L'Amico Fritz (1891), and I Rantzau (1892), the première of Ratcliff was presented with great success at La Scala on February 16, 1895. Between March 1893 and January 1894 he had reworked his youthful score, giving it its definitive version. On 31 March, 1893, he wrote to his friend Vichi: "Ratcliff proceeds quickly: I work a lot and am very pleased with my work. I know what is good and what is bad [in the earlier version—DS] and I assure you that I shall know how to keep the first and adjust the second."
As a testimonial of the affection he felt for Vichi, and in recognition of his help throughout those difficult years, Mascagni placed his name at the head of the score in [holographic] dedication: To my friend Vittorio Gianfranceschi, Engineer.
To the Libretto.
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