Lot n° 15
Estimation :
400 - 500
EUR
Gaspare SPONTINI (1774-1851) composer. L.A.S.... - Lot 15 - Daguerre
Gaspare SPONTINI (1774-1851) composer. L.A.S. ("copy" with corrections), Paris 29 November
1830, to the President of the Académie des Beaux-Arts; 2 1/2 pages in-fol. (portrait engraved by Quenedey
attached).
Beautiful letter of application to the Académie des Beaux-Arts for the chair of Charles-Simon Catel. [It is Ferdinando Paër
who was elected on January 29, 1831; Spontini did not enter the Institute until 1838]. "For twenty-seven years I have devoted my
my talents and my services to France! Since 1818 I have been a naturalized citizen [] Since 1811 I have been married to a French woman
French woman (Miss ERARD) and domiciled [] Composer and Director of the private music, at the Court of the Emperor
of the French! General Director, for a few years, of the Empress's theatre (Opera-Italian) I was
was appointed in 1816, by patent from the hand of His Majesty Louis XVIII, ordinary dramatic composer of the King of France
! This Monarch created me knight of the Legion of Honour, after having attended a performance of Fd Cortez, and
granted me a life pension on the civil list. With the permission of Louis XVIII, Spontini accepted in 1820 "the
contract offered to me by His Majesty the King of Prussia, by which contract I have the most extensive right to spend in France a
a very large part of each year! Spontini recalls that he had composed "sixteen or eighteen operas, buffoonish and serious," performed "on the
serious", performed "in the principal theatres of Italy, from the time I left the Naples Conservatory, having begun
in Rome in 1797, until my arrival in Paris in 1803. After having started here with an opera-bouffon, in three acts, on the Favart theatre (La finta filosofa) I composed for the Feydeau theatre, la petite maison, opera in three acts, Milton, and le Pot de fleurs. I then felt transported to higher conceptions, and I gave myself up entirely to the grand opera,
to lyrical tragedy, and composed the Vestal, Fd Cortez, Pelagius, Olimpie! the same time, I have in my portfolio four great new operas of
of the same name, and I have to say that I am not the only one to have a great deal of
in Prussia) which I intend to send to France.
Ex 105
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