BERLIOZ (Hector). - Lot 48

BERLIOZ (Hector). Born in Côte-Saint-André (Isère). 1803-1869. French romantic composer and conductor. L.A.S. "H. Berlioz" to "Mon cher Engels" [David Hermann Engel]. Paris 4 rue de Calais, Thursday, May 18 or 19 [1864]. 1 page in-8. Berlioz, a regular at the Baden Festival [where he premiered his opera Béatrice et Bénédict], organized every year by Edouard Bénazet, announces to David Hermann Engel the cancellation of the German musical event:...M. Bénazet came to spend a few days in Paris, and the Baden season is cancelled. He told me to suspend all my preparations; there will be no festival. I had already spoken of you, and you were adopted. If things work out, I'll let you know. He adds, hopelessly ...But, ...Bellum ruit... We were missing this....In chapter 59 of his Memoirs, Berlioz wrote: "M. Bénazet, the director of the games, has several times engaged me to come and organize and conduct the annual festival in Baden, putting at my disposal everything I could ask for to perform my works. His generosity, in such a case, far surpassed anything ever done for me by the sovereigns of Europe of whom I have the most to praise", then in a letter to his sister Adèle, dated March 11 1858 (Corr. Générale, no. 2283): "In Baden it's different; you earn money there, and you make good music, and you find a crowd of witty people, and you speak French there".BERLIOZ AND THE BADEN FESTIVAL IN GERMANY: Baden holds a special place in the long history of Berlioz's relations with Germany: no other German city was visited with such frequency. From 1853 to 1863, the French composer visited Baden more than a dozen times, returning every year from 1856 onwards. What brought him to Baden: the Bénazet family: father Jacques Bénazet (died 1848), then son Édouard Bénazet (1801-1867), who succeeded his father as manager of the Baden casino. Édouard Bénazet, who studied at the Paris Conservatoire, was a cultured man with a wide knowledge of the arts. Bénazet's ambition was to elevate the small spa town to an artistic center that would attract the elite of European society. In the 1850s, Bénazet set about realizing his project, creating new gaming halls, a large racecourse in Iffezheim and a new theater, which opened with Berlioz's opera "Béatrice et Bénédict" in 1862 (based on Shalespeare's play "Much Ado About Nothing"). But Bénazet gradually lost interest in Baden. In a letter to Camille Pal, Berlioz expresses his fear...of losing 2,000 f of income, by the cessation of my annual engagement for Baden, the suppression of the games is always announced and from then on no more music. Moreover, Bénazet seems determined not to give any more festivals... David Hermann Engel played the harmonium at the Baden Festival in 1859.Correspondance générale d'Hector Berlioz (P. Citron - Mac Donald, Flammarion 2001), Vol. VII, N° 2859.