Lot n° 49
Estimation :
1000 - 1500
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 4 480EUR
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) 6 L.A.S.,... - Lot 49 - Ader
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921) 6 L.A.S., Algiers and Paris, 1920, to Henri Woollettt; 10 pages in-12 and in-4 (some cracks in the folds, one letter cut in two, one repaired with tape).
Interesting correspondence on music and against Debussy.
Algiers, January 28 (headed Hôtel de l'Oasis). He thanks Woollett for his "articles on my symphony that Mangeot must have been very upset to publish"... - Paris, April 28. He indicates him melodies "for Soprano: Papillons S'il est un charmant garçon, for Tenor: L'Angélus, Où nous avons aimé, Tout le recueil: la Cendre rouge - Suzette et Suzon".... - 19 June. He is back from Greece, and the fatigue of the visit to the Acropolis has put him in an unfortunate state: "I have lost my legs and my fingers", and he could not play properly in Athens: "What do you want? one is not 84 with impunity". He has "dissents" with M. Mangeot [director of Le Monde musical] who has agreed to publish a letter of apology in his review... -July 9. On Debussy: " There is too much "smoke and mirrors" in his case ". It is his wife who made him known by praising articles before he was even heard. He denigrates his suggestive titles Dodo l'enfant do, Nous n'irons plus au bois, Jardins sous la pluie. "He announces the dialogue of the wind and the wave and we hear a trumpet playing "voilà l'plaisir mesdames". Of the color and not of "line", that will never be enough for me ". Saint-Saëns comes to his own work: Samson, initially conceived as an oratorio, was finally intended for the stage. "You refuse passion to my music. It seems to me, however, that there is no lack of it in my Concerto in G minor for piano, in the one in B minor for violin, in the one in A minor for cello, I even wonder if there is not more! [...] Aren't you confusing emotion with admiration? He returns to Debussy, whose "system of complete suppression of the song! In Pelléas, there are not even recitatives, which would still be rudimentary; there are only whispers" and the orchestra takes too much importance... - October 6, again against Debussy: "To appreciate Debussy's music, one does not have to be a musician". Some listeners " can listen with pleasure (!) to Debussy's cacophonies, everything is equal to them; one can tap at random on the piano, like Mr Erik Satie, without making them raise an eyebrow. [...] One gets used to everything, you say, but there are things one should not get used to, in music as in everything ". He criticizes (musical quotation) the first act of Pelléas with "this awful D b", in the Sea this trumpet which plays "voilà l'plaisir Mesdames" [...] And to think that if Debussy had not died, he was going to be imposed on us at the Academy! I would never have set foot there again"... - October 21. On Pelléas : "There are beautiful orchestral effects in Pelléas, there are also aberrations like those I have pointed out to you, and smoke and mirrors like this absurd way of writing the [musical quotation] not to mention the hair cut in four to impress the naive"...He likes progress, but not all progress, and persists "in preferring Racine to Maeterlinck and Mozart to Debussy, about whom you would not speak if you had not been suggested by his harmonious name and by the articles - review articles even!- that his wife had done before he reached the public "...
2 L.A.S. by Renée de Saint-Delis (1922) and C. de Montgeon (1928), and a facsimile of Jean-Jacques Rousseau are attached.
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