The trumpet starts to spit out it's awesome rhythmic riff on :05..as seen in figure 1, the rhythm gets faster as the subdivision increases. This I believe is a tonal painting for blood spurting out of Mario's temples faster and faster as Scarpia screams "piu forte". Most of the other instruments are on the beat so the trumpet's off beat nature really is emphasized. I have always wondered why Puccini is in the time signature 6/8 here, which is a rather dance like time meter. This could be a play on how Scarpia finds torture, pain, and suffering enjoyable, as it is almost a sort of pastime for him. As we move into the time change on :28, into a more expansive 3/4, Tosca's high C is actually more like a scream, not only for her, but for the trumpets as well, which are actually their highest note on the instrument. Audio is Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. Conductor is James Levine, MET

Here is another magnificent example of two geniuses working together to create a scene. At :30, ET's glowing heart creates a beautiful note, which happens to be on an A. This coincides with the orchestra's jump up on an A an octave higher, but they don't stay on it; they go down to a G...creating an awesome dissonance of a second, between the orchestra's G and ET's A. At 1:43, the leap in the orchestra coincides with the boy's hand movement on "ouch". At 1:15, the horns have a lonely sounding melody as the camera shows the boy's siblings. At 1:54, the orchestration changes again, right on ET's finger glow..and Maestro Williams even added bells or something of that sort..perfectly timed.
As ET says "I'll be right here", the orchestra stays put temporarily, but as soon as ET says it the brass comes in with their epic line, all by themselves. The boy doesn't speak until the last beat of the line actually, on his word "Bye". This really emphasizes the orchestration here, and again, is so perfectly timed.
As ET bends down for the flowers, again, we come into a new orchestration..a quicker tempo this time. As the dog runs up to follow ET, so does the score, with off-the-beat bass lines to give the effect of running. Video courtesy of Movieclips.

At 1:05 we have a "tripping" of the winds in their rhythm, almost like a fluttering of the hearts of the boys, or the stumbling of the agents as they chase the boys. It creates a hesitation in the music..just when you get used to steady eighth notes, we hear that little stumble. Thus it creates this sense of insecurity, and really paves the way for the very assertive brass line over them.
At 1:11, the sirens of the police match the pitches in the orchestra..5th to tonic in the key of C. This is no accident of course!
At 1:40, the running scale downwards to the downbeat matches the first set of boys landing from their jump, and the same thing follows with the second set of boys. Again, no accident!
At 1:42, the rapid scale upwards to the downbeat matches the boys on their exact moment they come over the hill.  Up until 1:53, every time the boys tackle the hills in their ride, Maestro Williams gives them a rapid scale...more like glissandos really, considering how fast they are.
 
At 1:58, as the brass repeat their motif up an octave; the police car screeches to a halt, mimicking the louder, more strident brass here.
 
At 2:13, the orchestra becomes very loud and clamorous as the boys create their own noise and clamor as they land, one by one, on top of the police car.
At 3:07, the boys believe they outran the agents and are home free.  We get our beautiful melody but it is distorted by the trombone's dissonance here..showing us, aurally, that there is still impending doom and they cannot rejoice yet.
The orchestra enters into chaos right as the agents run out to grab the boys. The brass gets dark as the camera zooms in on the gun, and at 3:33, the percussion enters perfectly right as the boys take off into the air.
None of this is by accident, and shows how a director and composer work closely together. Of course, it helps when they are both geniuses! Video courtesy of Peter Montag.

A :11, Scarpias's line "non vale quella prova? Allora..ripigliamo!" has an eerie silence in the orchestra. It emphasizes the terror of the sudden entrance of it  on Scarpia's "ripigliamo!". At :28, Tosca enters with her screams. The violins are high but not  in the stratosphere. We don't hear a lot of bass and the orchestration remains in the treble clef area. When Scarpia enters though at :39, we hear everything in the strings moved up a 6th..the same line Tosca sings is therefore transposed up. But Puccini adds a dark bass line, thanks to the brass. The listener therefore gets a huge auditory difference in register when Scarpia comes in. The large difference is like a smothering over Tosca's line..a gaping chasm in textures: very high and very low, like Scarpia opening up his arms to grab her or a monster opening up his jaws to eat his prey. The running 6ths seen in figure 1 underneath this section is like a description of how Tosca is feeling..she just wants to run away from all of this. At :47 the brass line moving up (figure 2) is like a laugh that Scarpia actually has written in his staging here. Audio is Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. Conductor is James Levine, MET.

 Today, we will be hearing some interesting musical conversations. First we hear cellos, basses, and bassoons perform a little rhythmic structure on a whole tone scale, descending (see circled parts in figure 1). We hear it here: 1:19-1:24. Puccini uses the whole tone scale often in this opera to give a sense of uncertainty and eeriness. We are unsure at this point what is going to happen to Mario, so as Sciarrone and Scarpia have a dialogue, we hear this motif. Tosca is most likely fervently listening to Mario, wondering if she is going to hear him shriek from the torture; thus, a musical "....". 

Starting 2:01, we hear a dialogue between oboe and flute, shown in figure 2 and 3. This mimics Mario and Tosca's dialogue here, which Puccini does rather cleverly. The audio is Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. James Levine, MET

At this point in the opera, Scarpia is describing Cavaradossi's torture. It is pure brawn, and the textures are heavy. We will be discussing the importance of the rhythmic motif within the strings, for it is through them we get the basis of our tonal painting. The audio is Renata Scotto, Placido Domingo, and Renato Bruson. James Levine, MET

Scarpia says he is bound hand and foot and for every negation Mario gives, the spikes jab into his temples and draw blood without mercy. In figure 1, we see some tonal paintings here. Through figure 2, we see the continuation of the structure.The violins and cellos as well as the timpani steadily increase the rhythmic motif, starting off with only two 32nds, then 32nd triplet, then four 64ths. This creates a steady jabbing..the spikes get deeper and deeper. The faster successive groupings are tonal paintings for the rush of the blood spurting out of Mario's temples. The trumpets are muted here giving a strained color. The syncopation in the horns, clarinet, and English Horn seen in figure 3 creates a throbbing sound after the strings have their rhythmic painting...almost like a panting there, as if Mario is catching his breath momentarily after screaming in pain. Interestingly, the rest of the orchestra is relatively quiet there so the off-beat lines really come through. In figure 4, we hear a drop of harmony and get a stark texture within the orchestra on 'sangue". 

​On the second half of figure 4, we see a tremendous difference in harmony on Tosca's scream (her high C). As listeners, we are used to the C# that came previously, but now we enter a stark C minor chord, creating a sudden brightness here. This jives with Tosca's absolute horror at the situation here.
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