Autograph letter framed with bust-length photographic portrait
1 page. Octavo. Dated Thursday, 16 April 1908 and signed "C. Saint-Saëns." On letterhead of the Hotel Bedford in Paris. In French (with translation). Double matted in light brown/gilt in double window. Image size 170 x 118 mm., autograph size 175 x 121 mm., overall size 335 x 427 mm. Gilt-framed and glazed.
The composer invites his correspondent to come to see him the next morning. "You know that I am well-disposed toward you, and that I am always happy to be able to be of help to you. I returned to Paris only yesterday."
Saint-Saëns is regarded as "was the first established composer to write film music." He composed the score to the film L'assassinat du duc de Guise, op. 128 (first performed in Paris at the Charras on 16 November 1908), in the year this letter was penned; he also composed the incidental music La foi, first performed in Monte Carlo on 10 April 1909, in 1908.
"Like Mozart, to whom he was often compared, he was a brilliant craftsman, versatile and prolific, who contributed to every genre of French music. He was one of the leaders of the French musical renaissance of the 1870s. ... Although he seemed a reactionary to his younger colleagues, in his time Saint-Saëns served French music well. The perspective of history shows him as a neo-classicist and as the embodiment of certain traditional French qualities – moderation, logic, clarity, balance and precision – that were coming back into fashion at the turn of the 20th century." Sabina Teller Ratner in Grove Music Online.
Item #39085
Price: $375.00 other currencies