GOUNOD Charles. - Lot 273

Lot n° 273
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Result : 1 000EUR
GOUNOD Charles. - Lot 273
GOUNOD Charles. MUSICAL MANUSCRIPT autograph "Ch. Gounod", Gallia (Biblical Elegy), [1871]; 21 pages in-4 (30.5 x 24.5 cm; small marginal holes to bind the leaves). Piano reduction and song of this cantata on the misfortunes of France through the Lamentations of Jeremiah. The cantata Gallia [CG 40; Condé p. 534-535] was composed in London, where Gounod had taken refuge in 1870 to escape the German invasion. He tells us in Memoirs of an Artist: 'the administration of the International Exhibition of 1871 asked me if I wanted to represent French musical art in a work that would be performed on 1 May, publicly, in the gigantic and splendid Albert Hall, before an audience of 10,000 people'. Gounod refused at first: 'I did not feel the strength nor the courage to sing on foreign soil, while my unfortunate country was crying and bleeding under the blows of the German invasion and the discords of the civil war'. Then he thought that it was his duty to defend France in music: "The idea came to me then to represent France as she was, not only defeated, crushed, but outraged, insulted, violated by the insolence and brutality of her enemy. I remembered Jerusalem in ruins, the groans of the prophet Jeremiah, and on the first verses of the Lamentations I wrote a biblical elegy"; the work, for solo soprano, mixed choir and orchestra, on May 1, 1871, was a great success, and was published in London by Novello. The manuscript, written in black ink on 12-stave paper, was used for the engraving of the English edition; a missing bar has been pinned to page 2 Four pieces in the same movement Andante molto maestoso:- "Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena popuplo"..., lament in E minor in 4/4 (p. 1-8); - Cantilena: "Viæ Sion lugent"... in A minor (p. 9-12); - Chorus and solo: "O vos omnes"..., followed by the solo: "Jerusalem? convertere"... (p. 13-21). An autograph manuscript (1 page and a quarter small in-4) for Georgina WELDON for her performance of Gallia at the Opéra-Comique on November 8, 1871, in 3 points is attached: " 1° On the ritornello of the Cantilena, move forward with equal steps on the rhythm of two in two beats; then stop before the end of the ritornello, not to move forward too far "... And so on.
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