Musical grave-robbing had been a flourishing trade even before Our Love (from the Romeo and Juliet overture) put Tchaikovsky on the jukeboxes. And nothing could be done about it by the shades of Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Chopin; their works were in the public domain. But supposedly the melodious music of Italy's Giacomo (La Bohème) Puccini, who died in 1924, was still safe. Not so.
Last week the New York Times uncovered a story that shocked U.S. music lovers. The Office of Alien Property, which seized the U.S. business of Puccini's Italian publishers as...
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