Autograph Letter Signed, in Cyrillic, three pages 8vo, St Petersburg,January 30,1907.
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, NIKOLAY ANDREYEVECH (1844-1908) Russian composer, one of five Russian composers known as The Five, and was later a teacher of harmony and orchestration. He is particularly noted for a predilection for folk and fairy-tale subjects, and for his extraordinary skill in orchestration.
To the Parisian musicologist and translator Mikhail Osipovich [Delin] discussing the Paris premier of Sadko, a Russian epic tale, its translation and publication, commenting that it would probably be staged at the Opˇra before The Snow Maiden, provided that the new director, [Andre] Messager, shows more enthusiasm for it than did his predecessor, lamenting the loss of Stassov's support, suggesting two alternative titles for his new opera Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, informing Delin that his songs will be published with translations but not transposed, how his music will be good for the singers, and suggesting how they can promote Sadko (' ... As regards the letter to Marti, I have a different opinion. The composer requires performers, but the performers also need composers (even Parisian performers)'), and informing him that Kitezh will be performed in February. He mentions two small references to the opera in the press and complains that Marti had not notified him of its success. Signed with a full signature. (Item ID: 1372)
$9,000.00
The musicologist and translator Mikhail Delin, whom Rimsky-Korsakov met on his visit to the Exposition Universelle in 1889, also produced the French text for Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Sadko, one of Rimsky-Korsakov's greatest operas, although dating from 1898, was not performed in Paris until 1911, after the composer's death. The first performance of The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh took place in St Petersburg on 20 February 1907, three weeks after the date of this letter. A magnificent and rare autograph letter.
