Mascagni suffered the fate of seeing his first performed opera, Cavalleria Rusticana, a worldwide success but then never replicating that.

This caused him great anguish, and even bitterness, and a small, influential body of musicians maintain that his other works deserve greater recognition than has been their lot.

Guglielmo Radcliff, due to be staged in Wexford, was his first opera – composed mostly when he was a teenager.

This recording of a live performance in Rome, in 1963, shows the opera to be rich in lyrical melody, alternatively tense and passionate.

The weak and somewhat ludicrous plot hindered recognition, but the music is vintage Mascagni. Its intermezzo – known as Radcliff's Dream – is on YouTube, and is a representative introduction to this flawed but musically rich work.