MASSENET, Jules 1842-1912

La Vierge Légende Sacrée en Quatre Scènes de Ch. Grandmougin ... Pr: 15 fr. [Piano-vocal score]

Paris: G. Hartmann [PN G.H. 1093], [1880].

Large octavo. Original publisher's blue cloth-backed blue decorative printed wrappers with printed titling to spine. 1f. (recto polychrome title, verso blank), 1f. (half-title within decorative device, verso named cast list), 1f. (recto contents, verso blank), 214 pp.

With an autograph inscription signed by the composer ("J. Massenet") to Madame de Grandval (the composer Marie-Félicie Clémence de Reiset 1828-1907) and dated 1880 to upper outer corner of half-title.

With small oval publisher's handstamp to blank lower outer corner of title.

Wrappers worn; splitting at spine; chipped at edges. Somewhat worn; moderately foxed; signatures separated; some edges chipped and with small tears; lacking final page of music (supplied in photocopy); some bleeding to inscription.

First Edition.

First performed in Paris at the Opéra on 22 May 1880.

"La Vierge (completed in 1878) is a ‘légende sacrée’ with a text by Grandmougin and a considerable cast. Its four scenes are ‘The Annunciation’, ‘The Wedding at Cana’, ‘Good Friday’, and ‘The Assumption’; there is a Galilean Dance during the wedding scene. The single movement that makes up the Good Friday scene is one of Massenet’s best creations, broad in conception and strongly dramatic in character, but the work has never found favour, with the exception of the prelude to the last scene, ‘Le dernier sommeil de la Vierge’, featuring a solo cello and muted strings." Hugh Macdonald in Grove Music Online.

We would like to thank Mr. Bernard Peyrotte of Librairie Arioso in Paris for kindly informing us of the identity of the person to whom Massenet inscribed the present score.

Item #29554

Price: $175.00  other currencies