VERDI, Giuseppe (1813-1901). Two autograph letters signed to Ferdinand Gravrand and [Léon] Escudier, Paris, 10 November 1848, 3 pages in all, the former with integral address leaf, octavo. These important letters indicate that Verdi composed ballet music, now lost, for the first performance of Nabucco at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels which was given in a French translation by Ferdinand Gravrand and Jules Guilliaume. In the first letter Verdi specifies that the choreographer can alter the order of the ballet music so long as successive numbers are not in the same key or that there is not too great a clash from one key to the next. He declines the invitation to go to Brussels for the performance. In the letter to Escudier, Verdi suggests that Gravrand waits until tomorrow before leaving for Brussels because before noon he will be in Paris with the full score of the ballet music. The music for the ballet has not yet been found. Either it was returned to Verdi as he requests and subsequently destroyed or it may have been used in part or wholely for the ballet numbers of Les Vêpres Siciliennes . The Escudier brothers, Marie and Léon, were Verdi's agents in Paris. Marie edited the firm's journal, La France Musicale , while Léon handled their publishing business. It seems likely, therefore, that as Verdi refers to music, he is writing, as he more often did, to Léon. The letters are published in George Martin Aspects of Verdi , Robson Books, 1989, pp.245-6. (2)
VERDI, Giuseppe (1813-1901). Two autograph letters signed to Ferdinand Gravrand and [Léon] Escudier, Paris, 10 November 1848, 3 pages in all, the former with integral address leaf, octavo. These important letters indicate that Verdi composed ballet music, now lost, for the first performance of Nabucco at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels which was given in a French translation by Ferdinand Gravrand and Jules Guilliaume. In the first letter Verdi specifies that the choreographer can alter the order of the ballet music so long as successive numbers are not in the same key or that there is not too great a clash from one key to the next. He declines the invitation to go to Brussels for the performance. In the letter to Escudier, Verdi suggests that Gravrand waits until tomorrow before leaving for Brussels because before noon he will be in Paris with the full score of the ballet music. The music for the ballet has not yet been found. Either it was returned to Verdi as he requests and subsequently destroyed or it may have been used in part or wholely for the ballet numbers of Les Vêpres Siciliennes . The Escudier brothers, Marie and Léon, were Verdi's agents in Paris. Marie edited the firm's journal, La France Musicale , while Léon handled their publishing business. It seems likely, therefore, that as Verdi refers to music, he is writing, as he more often did, to Léon. The letters are published in George Martin Aspects of Verdi , Robson Books, 1989, pp.245-6. (2)
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