SAINT-SAENS, CAMILLE. (1835-1921). French composer and organist. ALS. (“C. Saint-Saens”). 4pp. 8vo. Cairo, January 6, 1904. To GABRIEL [FAURE?] (1845-1924). French composer, teacher and pianist.
“My dear Gabriel
This Florinde must absolutely be found. Mr. Castelbon cannot have taken it away because it could not have been of any use to him. It must have been on the table next to my bed and probably still is, or on the table in front of the window, or in the drawers of these two tables.
I am leaving for Italy on the 9th, in 3 days. I will write to you from Naples to tell you when you must come join me.
My piano is saddened to see me leave, and I am saddened to leave this quiet place where I am so well; I have even come to believe that I am at home. The weather is still superb but it has been cooling a little. It will certainly be different there, it will probably be necessary to pack winter clothes; and then all the inevitable problems, the mistakes to be corrected, the rehearsals, the concerts to which one will have to go out of politeness while falling asleep. Here I go to bed at 9 o’clock! I have made some progress on the piano! In a few more years and you will see that I will play quite well!
I have work to do: Mrs. Gounod has decided to let me finish her husband’s unfinished work, to which nothing much is missing. The Durands are not happy about it, but the young ladies Gallet will be very pleased! In fact it will be done in no time.
I had just sent Paul 800 f. to pay for the debts when I received the bad news from you. The money must have been confiscated but it will certainly be given back to him later.
I am wearing a pretty little Turquoise on my finger which I intend to offer you if you behave well.
It will probably be on the 20th of this month that I will arrive in Monte Carlo.
[Sketch of a flower in the margin] I have better news from the young couple of Béziers. Valentine is getting fat; she needed to do so!
The dogs from Bel Ébat sent me a postcard; I have sent them one too.
My best regards to both of you and my fond memories to papa… [Written vertically in the left margin of the first page] Give a kiss to Dolita for me.”
Camille Saint-Saens
Gabrielle Faure
Charles Gounod
After the death of both his young sons in May and July of 1878 Saint-Saëns, wracked with grief and blame, separated from his wife, never to marry again. He transferred his affection to pupils like the composer and conductor André Messager and composer Gabriel Fauré. “Indeed, as the years went by he tended to regard the latter’s growing family as his own, and while he did all he could to further his protégé’s career he became, for Fauré’s wife and children, a benevolent uncle,” (The New Grove Dictionary). After the additional loss of his mother, Saint-Saëns became a “lonely nomad” and “traveled ceaselessly and widely, either on long concert tours or on holiday. Algeria and Egypt were his favorite resorts and gave him the exotic source of the Suite algérienne (1880), Africa (1891) and the Fifth Piano Concerto (1896), nicknamed ‘Egyptian,’” and inspired songs of men boating on the Nile, (ibid.). For his piano concertos, his friend French composer Charles Gounod (1818-1893) dubbed Saint-Saens “the Beethoven of France.” Saint-Saens arranged Gounod’s 1888 Suite Concertante, and at Gounod’s state funeral, Saint-Saens played the organ and, according to Gounod’s wishes, Fauré conducted his Missa pro defunctis. Our letter might refer to Gounod’s uncompleted 3rd Symphony in C Major.
Though talented as a composer and improviser, Fauré spent decades supporting himself as an organist and private teacher. After being dismissed from his post as organist at the Church of Saint-Sauveurin in Rennes, Saint-Saens, helped him gain an appointment at Paris’ Notre-Dame de Clignancourt, but that position was cut short by military service in the Franco-Prussian War. After a brief period teaching abroad and a series of church positions, Fauré was granted a Conservatoire professorship in 1896 to replace Jules Massenet despite faculty complaints that Fauré’s music was too modern. Among his many students were Maurice Ravel, George Enescu and Nadia Boulanger. After a scandal surrounding Ravel’s elimination from the Prix de Rome in 1905 prompted the early retirement of the Conservatoire’s director, Fauré was chosen to head the highly regarded institution. Backed by the government, he implemented sweeping administrative reforms and modernized the curriculum, earning the nickname “Robespierre” from his enemies.
Bel-Ébat, a manor house near Fontainebleau, was the home of French music publisher Marie-Auguste Massacrié-Durand (1830-1909) and his son Marie-Jacques Massacrié-Durand (1865-1928) whose firm published the works of Saint-Saens, Fauré and their contemporaries.
Saint-Saens refers to a friend in the Occitaine city of Béziers, where, in 1898 conductor Fernand Castelbon de Beauxhostes (1859-1934) invited Saint-Saens to help inaugurate a new amphitheater by composing the score for French librettist Louis Gallet’s (1835-1898) play Déjanire. Saint-Saens later developed the incidental music into a four-act lyric opera of the same name in 1910 and dedicated the work to Castelbon de Beauxhostes. The young ladies Gallet may be the children of Gallet who also wrote librettos for Georges Bizet and Jules Massenet.
“Dolita” might refer to Régina-Hélène Bardac (later Madame Gaston de Tinan; 1892-1985), the daughter of Fauré’s mistress, soprano Emma Bardac, whose nickname was Dolly and for whom he composed his Dolly Suite, Op. 56, between 1893 and 1896. Our letter was written just prior to Bardac’s love affair with Claude Debussy which would scandalize Paris’ music establishment.
Written on all four leaves of a folded sheet and in excellent condition.
