On Rossini, Mozart, Bellini, Weber, Gluck and Verdi:
My dear friend, will you please arrange your affairs tomorrow so that we can go together to the Italians to see the first performance of Othello, del Signorissimo Rossini. (1821)
How I like those Italians! At the Louvois theatre I revel in listening to their lovely music and gazing rapturously at their delicious actresses…Galli has arrive. He made his debut yesterday in La Gazza and scored a great success. I’m looking forward to seeing him at the second performance. (1821)
I hope too, that we shall occasionally go together to admire the magnificent Mme. Pasta. I’m yearning to hear her. My heart is still full of the music of Tancredi, which as you know I was lucky enough to see twice. I am very glad to see that they are reviving the Nozze. (1822)
I have seen Freischütz in two different theatres, with some music that was omitted in Paris. There are some very remarkable things in the scene where they cast the bullets. The English understand theatrical effect better than we do, and their stage sets, although they are not so carefully carried out as ours, provide a more effective background to the actors. (1825, from London)
Belatedly, I send you my sincerest congratulations. I saw La Juive for the first time yesterday; and I must tell you how wholeheartedly I admired the lively interest you shed over this play, which is certainly in need of it, smothered as it is by all that rubbish that’s so alien to art. What has become of us, that we need so many extraneous reinforcements for music, which is the most powerful of all the arts…? (to the tenor, Nourrit, 1835)
I shall not be able to come and see you tonight: it’s the last night of my Italian players and I Puritani... (to George Sand, 1840)
Last night I saw the opera of the famous Verdi about whom that Young German musician I met at your house waxed so enthusiastic; Verdi or Merdi is all the rage today; it’s a rehash of Rossini’s leavings, minus the ideas, nothing but noise...Where is Chopin, where is Mozart…? (to George Sand, 1847)
Today I heard Rossini’s Stabat. It’s a cut above Pistolet, and above Jean too. It isn’t quite Mozart, either; but such as it is, it stands quite a few cubits higher than my friend Halévy. (1842)
As we dine late, we can’t go for walks after dinner, and in the absence of virtuosi such as Batta, etc., we plunge boldly into score-reading. We must sound very odd stumbling through Don Giovanni, La Gazza Ladra, etc. (1855)
Mme Viardot has just been singing Orphée; the best thing you can do at this moment is to take the coach from Châteauroux and come to Paris to see her in this masterpiece, to which she has really given fresh life. (to George Sand, 1859)
(excerpts taken from “Eugène Delacroix, selected letters, 1813-1863; edited and translated by Jean Stewart)
I recommend to you all the diaries of Paul Klee, who wrote with insight about concerts he attended and in which he performed as an orchestral violinist. And while we are reading Delacroix and Klee, it wouldn’t hurt to view some of their pictures; among the two greatest painters in Western art. Composer’s letters are part of score study as well. There is priceless correspondence between Mahler and Strauss, between Saint-Saëns and Faure. Get to the museum, get to the library, get to the theatre. And don’t forget to call your mother!
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