Verdi, Giuseppe

on the first page, Verdi makes notes for Ricordi about [Paul] Gailhard, director of the Paris Opéra deciding about the contralto for the “preghiera” (possibly the Ave Maria), and for Taffenel regarding  the premiere at the Opèra, and the merits of using soprano and mezzo-soprano voices, with a quotation from the Ave Maria, advising on possible singers of the Laude all vergine, asking him take care in sustaining the tonality (“...chose bien difficile dans les morceaux...avec les modulations relatifs...”), and asking “cher Tafanel” to make time for a rehearsal to ensure the tuning at these points.

In the longer second draft letter to Ricordi, including two autograph drawings for the seating plan for the orchestral and choral forces of the Quattro pezzi sacri, Verdi explains that he wishes the chorus to be divided in both the Stabat Mater, and Te Deum, since this improves the sonority, especially where the chorus is unaccompanied, and avoids the distracting movement of singers between the two pieces, remarks positively on the reports he has heard of Taffenel's handling of the 'In te domine speravi' section of the Te Deum, and requests that the two settings of the Ave Maria are not included in the concert, as they are merely musical “charades”, rather than pieces to be performed publicly (“...non sono che una specie di sciarada musicale, un tour de force di modulzioni su una scala sgangerata...”)



3 pages, 8vo (22 x 13.8cm), printed stationery of the “Grand Hotel di Milan”, [probably 2 March 1898], torn into quarters and reassembled and repaired with tape, slighly affecting the text on verso, later pencil annotation recording Toscanini's performances of the “Quattro pezzi sacri”

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...Ora mi permetto di fare qualche osservazione sulla distribuzione dell'Orchestra e Cori.  Tutto quel [deleted: “quelle”] movimento, quel va e vieni  quello spostamento di cori distrae ed occupa troppo attenzione del pubblico.  Per me preferei che al cominciare della seconda parte tutto fossero a posto, e nissuno si movesse più fino alla fine del Concerto e non importa che il Coro sia diviso anche per lo Stabat, anzi per me credo che nei momenti in cui i Cori sono senza Orchestra, la sonorità sarebbe più piena più larga più estesa...

This letter is apparently unpublished. 

This letter contains two drawings, one revised, of the seating plan for the first performance of the Quattro pezzi sacri at the Paris Opéra. They recall the instructions given by Ricordi for the staging of Verdi's operas, designs that were published as the Disposizioni sceniche.

These designs certainly derived from Verdi himself, but few of his autograph drawings have been seen, and none offered for sale; here we have two successive pen sketches in his hand (for another example, see his design for Act II of Falstaff, in a letter of 1892, in M. Chusid, 'Verdi's Own Words', in The Verdi Companion, 1980, p.173).  

Arturo Toscanini was closely connected with the Quattro pezzi sacri, of which he conducted the Italian première in Turin on 26 May 1898.  He had also visited the great composer in Genoa in April 1898 to discuss the pieces, and, during the interview, Toscanini sat at the piano in Verdi's study and played parts of the score as he and the chorus master listened to Verdi's remarks (see M. Conati, Encounters with Verdi, 1984, pp.302-303).  Paul Taffenel (1844-1908) conducted the world premiere at the Paris Opéra on 7 April, and the notes about the solo singers and the tuning of the modulations is apparently hitherto unknown.  Verdi names the singers of the Laude alla vergine, as [Rose] Caron, [Louise] Grandjean, “Eglen” [Meyrianne Héglon] and [Marie] Delna, but in the first performance, the first soprano was Aino Ackté.  

The letter to Ricordi contained in this manuscript, which concerns the two largest pieces, the Te Deum and the Stabat Mater, is a working draft (with additional notes for Taffenel) of the unpublished letter that Verdi wrote to Ricordi, dated 2 March 1898, which was sold in these room on 6 December 1996, lot 278.