BERLIOZ (Hector). - Lot 244

BERLIOZ (Hector). May 3/4, 1864. Autograph letter signed to his son Louis Berlioz [Paris. May 3-4, 1864). Gp. in-8. Trace of tab. Beautiful, long letter in which he discusses the death of Meyerbeer, Rossini, Beethoven, etc.... Meyerbeer's death has come to finish me off. Such intelligence does not disappear from the world without the survivors noticing the darkening that is taking place.... Last Monday I went to our weekly dinner: there was a lot of talk about Meyerbeer and Rossini, and we said things about these two men that I believe to be true: one was an artist, no doubt an egoist, the other is an egoist who is not an artist. Fiorentino, though Italian, was the first to support this thesis, and I've relieved my heart by developing it." ...No matter how many times I have written to Mr. Richard Pohl, who undertook the German translation of Les Troyens, I have not been able to obtain an answer: what is even worse is that the Leipzig publisher of the new edition of my Treatise on Instrumentation, which was to have counted me a hundred thalers at Easter, does not want to answer me either, nor consequently pay me...