Lot n° 235
Estimation :
12000 - 15000
EUR
offenbach Jacques (1819-1880).
autograph musical manuscript signed "Jacques Offenbach", Grande
Scène Espagnole, [1840]; sewn notebook with 49 folio pages.
37 x 27,5 cm (slight stains and wetness, some tears restored, small marginal paper losses skilfully filled in, affecting some beginnings or ends of lines on the 1st leaf); in red half-box slipcase.
Suite for cello and orchestra, one of the great successes of the young virtuoso cellist.
This Grande Scène Espagnole, Op. 22 [A 79], is one of the first works by the then twenty-year-old Offenbach.
The manuscript is written in brown ink on the front and back of 25 sheets of 16-span paper¸ bound into a notebook. At the top of the first page Offenbach wrote down the title and the list of the different pieces of this suite: "Grande Scène Espagnole pour le
Cello with orchestra acct - No. 1
Introduction - Prayer. 2 Ronde des Muletiers.
3. Serenade. 4. Boléro -composed by
Jacques Offenbach"; followed by a scratched date (March 27 [?] 1843). There are numerous scratches and corrections, as well as a small pen-and-ink drawing in the margin of the last page (a man wearing a large hat, perhaps a Spaniard).
Offenbach reworked the suite, as evidenced by a collar and traces of deleted pages, probably before giving the manuscript to a copyist to prepare the orchestral parts for a concert: he cut out the Sérénade [du Ménestrel], and the Ronde des Muletiers, of which only the first and last leaves remain, as indicated by remnants of leaf margins cut between the beginning leaf (12 bars) of the Ronde des muletiers, which was sewn with the final leaf (15 bars). There is also a large collar on the 11th page for the cello cadenza before the Bolero. In addition to the 24 pages of the booklet, there is a last page giving a first version of the final 17 bars. The orchestra includes, in addition to the solo cello: flutes, oboes, clarinets, horns, bassoons, trumpets, trombones, violins I and II, violas I and II, cellos and double basses. After the Introduction Andante maestoso, in D major in 4/4, comes a "Solo" cadenza (p. 3) which leads to the Prière (p. 5). This is followed (p. 11), after a 4-bar collette, by the Bolero, in C in 3/8 time, marked Allegro vivo . Composed in Cologne at the beginning of 1840, when illness and death struck his family and brought Offenbach back to his home town, this Grande Scène espagnole, "whose cheerfulness could be surprising if it did not constitute a refuge from such a painful situation" (Jean-Claude Yon), was successfully premiered by the young composer and cellist in Cologne on 10 November. He played various pieces during his Parisian concerts, such as the "Ronde des Muletiers" on April 16, 1842, or the entire Boléro on April 2, 1843 at the Salle Herz, where the Boléro "especially produced a lot of effect by its Iberian color, and the lively, original and cute way in which the author played it," reports L'Artiste, which adds: "you think you can hear the satin corset of the Andalusian girls cracking; it seems as if you are penetrated by the bright flame of their black eyes; you feel yourself falling into reverie and being carried away burning with these brunettes of Spain". He performed excerpts (Prière and Boléro in particular) at the Grand Théâtre de Marseille on 26 November 1844, in Troyes in February 1848, in Cologne on 16 July 1848 and 9 January 1849, and in Vienna on 11 March 1862. The work was published in Berlin by Schlesinger in 1846 and in Paris by Cotelle. It was dedicated to the Countess Madeleine-Sophie Bertin de Vaux (1805-1849), who was Offenbach's protector, whom she welcomed into her musical salon, thus launching him into Parisian musical life, and his godmother at his baptism in 1844. Provenance: Jacques Brindejont-Offenbach (1883-1956, grandson of the composer); Laurent Fraison. Discography: Camille Thomas, Orchestre National de Lille, dir. Alexandre Bloch (Deutsche Grammophon, 2017).
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