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Ambroise Thomas
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<<< At left is the grave of
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TRANSCRIPTION
Conservatoire national
de musique et
de déclamation
Cabinet du directeur
Paris le 29 mai 1878
Monsieur et honoré Maître,
je viens d'entendre
Mlle Vendimi que vous m'avez
l'honneur de me recommander.
Elle a en effet une jolie
voix; mais il ne dépend pas
de moi de faire ce qu'elle
désire. Je parlerai d'elle
cependant à la Commission
des fêtes musicales du Trocadéro
Page Two
et aussi à M. Colonne,
chef directeur de ces concerts.
C'est ce dernier surtout
qui doit l'entendre avec
les compositeurs exécutés
pour le choix des solistes
chanteurs.
Agréez, Monsieur
et honoré Maître, mes
sentiments de haute considération.
Ambroise Thomas
TRANSLATION
Paris, May 29, 18781
Sir and honored Master,
I have just heard
Miss Vendimi2 whom you had the honor
of recommending to me.
She, in fact, has a nice
voice, but it does not fall on
me to do what she
desires. However, I will talk of her
to the Musical Celebration
Commission of Trocadero 3
Page Two
and also to Mr. Colonne4,
executive conductor for these concerts.
It is mostly the latter
who needs to hear her [who] with
the composers execute
the selection of soloist
singers.
Ambroise Thomas
NOTES:
1) May 29, 1878 was a Wednesday
2) No information on Miss Vendimi has been found.
3) The "Musical Celebration Commission of Trocadéro" refers to a planned series of concerts at the 4,700-seat- Trocadéro Palace during the 1878 Exposition Universelle that were to be conducted by Edouard Colonne (See note 4 below). France's contribution to the Exposition was to schedule for the main Trocadéro hall 10 grand concerts with orchestra, 12 organ concerts, four choral concerts and four band concerts. A committee was formed to select which works would be performed. This committee was divided into five sub-committee. Thomas chaired one of the sub-committees. The other members of his sub-committee were composers César Franck, Samuel David and Ernest Guiraud; and theatre administrator Auguste-Emmanuel Ferville Vaucorbeil. (Demar Irvine, Massenet: A Chronicle of His Life and Times (Portland:1994) p. 101)
4) Edouard Colonne (1838-1910) was a violinist and conductor. In 1875, he founded the Association Artistique du Châtelet ( Châtelet was a theater) that became known as the Concerts Colonne. The organization had started in 1873 at the Odéon theater then known as Concert National conducted by Georges Hartmann.
ABOUT THE COMPOSER
Charles Louis Ambroise Thomas was born August 5, 1811 in Metz, France. His father was a musician and so Ambroise learned music in childhood and played the piano and violin. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1828. He won the Prix de Rome in 1832 for his cantata, Hermann et Ketty. He had success in the Opéra Comique, he tried the Opera, but there was so much competition from giants such as Halévy, Auber and Meyerbeer, he returned to the Opéra Comique where he continued operatic success. His best known opera is Mignon (1868) that was given its 1,000th performance in 1894. He became a professor at the Conservatoire in 1856 where he taught, among others, Massenet, DuBois and Bourgault-Ducourdray. Thomas succeeded Daniel Auber as director of the Conservatoire in 1871. Thomas died in Paris on February 12 1896.
A student and disciple of Thomas was Jules Massenet. Massenet
recites his own recollection of his master's funeral:
"The third after his death, I delivered his funeral oration
in the name of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques. I
began as follows:
"It is said that a king of France in the presence of the body
of a powerful seigneur of his court could not help saying, 'How tall he was!' So
he who rests here before us seemed tall to us, being of those whose height
is only realized after death.
"To see him pass in life so simple and calm, in his dream of
art, who of us, accustomed to feel him kindly and forbearing always at our
sides, has seen that he was so tall that we had to raise our eyes to look him
fairly in the face." (Source: My Recollections, Jules Massenet,
(1919) pp.214-215.)
REV. 2/11/2006
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