Loeb Music Library

Happy New Year! In this group of digital scores, you’ll find operas from the first half of the 19th century, by Cherubini, Meyerbeer, and Spontini (as well as one early Donizetti libretto). Get these, and nearly 600 other scores, in our collection of Digital Scores and Libretti.

Luigi Cherubini, 1760-1842.
[Deux journées]
Les deux journées: opéra en trois actes / par le c.en Bouilly …; mis en musique par le c.en Chérubini. Paris: Gaveaux, rue St. Marc N. 10, [181-?].
Merritt Room Mus 637.1.675.2

A full score of Cherubini’s popular rescue opera (see our earlier post for a digitized copy of the vocal score).

Guillaume Gaveaux (Gaveaux ainé) was one of a family of music publishers and merchants active in Paris between 1794 and 1832; the full imprint in this copy is covered by a label reading “Chez Mme. Duhan & Cie. … Boulvard Poissoniere No. 10.” One of a number of women in the Parisian music business, Jeanne-Elisabeth Duhan was also associated with manufacture and sale of early lithographed music printed by Louise-Gabrielle Vernay’s Imprimerie Lithographique.¹

Gaspare Spontini, 1774-1851.

[Vestale. Vocal score]
La vestale : tragédie lyrique en trois actes / de mr. de Jouy; mise en musique par Gaspard Spontini; réduite pour piano. Paris: Melles. Erard, [1822?].
Mus 813.2.608

A vocal score, with some instrumental cues, of Spontini’s first grand opera and greatest success, premiered – with the Empress Josephine’s patronage – at the Théâtre de l’Académie Royale de Musique on December 15, 1807.

Soon after, Jouy wrote a parody of his own work for the Théatre du Vaudeville. Read the libretto, and his account of its creation, in his collected works: La Marchande de Modes: parodie de La Vestale (full text online).

[Fernand Cortez. Vocal score]
Fernand Cortez: opéra / par G. Spontini; arrangé pour le piano. Paris: Imbault; Melles. Érard, [1809?].
Mus 813.2.623

A vocal score of the first version of Spontini’s second grand opera, premiered November 28, 1809. Napoleon had commissioned the libretto, loosely based on Cortez’s 1520 invasion of Mexico, as a propaganda piece in support of his Spanish campaigns during the Pennisular War. While the first version was withdrawn after 13 performances, a second opened in 1817 with a revised libretto to suit the political climate of the Bourbon Restoration – and with greater success.

Giacomo Meyerbeer, 1791-1864.
[Emma di Resburgo. Vocal score. German & Italian]
Emma von Roxburgh: grosse Oper in zwei Aufzügen / componirt von J. Meyerbeer; vollständiger Klavier-Auszug mit deutschem und italienischem text von J.P. Schmidt. Berlin: in der Schlesingerschen Buch- und Musikhandlung; Schlesinger, [1820?].
Mus 743.3.676

Meyerbeer’s first Venetian commission (premiered at San Benedetto, June 26, 1819), and his first international success. A German-language production opened in Berlin in February of 1820.²

Gaetano Donizetti, 1797-1848.
[Elisir d’amore. Libretto]
L’elisir d’amore: melodramma giocoso in due atti: da rappresentarsi nel Teatro Carlo Felice, l’autunno dell’anno 1833. Genova: Stamperia Arcivesovile, [1833].
Merritt Room ML51.D683 E42 1833

A libretto from one of the earliest performances of L’elisir d’amore, performed at Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice. Donizetti’s popular melodrama had opened the year before at Milan’s Teatro alla Canobbiana and was quickly produced at opera houses throughout Europe.

-Kerry Masteller

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1. On 18th and 19th century music publishing in Paris, see Anik Devriès and François Lesure, Dictionnaire des èditeurs de musique français (Genève: Éditions Minkoff, 1979-1988); Cecil Hopkinson, A Dictionary of Parisian Music Publishers, 1700-1950 (London: 1954). On the Imprimerie lithographique, see Michael Twyman, Early lithographed music: a study based on the H. Baron Collection (London: Farrand, 1996): 247-254.

2. On production histories, see Alfred Loewenberg, Annals of Opera: 1597-1940, 3rd rev. ed. (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1978).

These operas by Cherubini are among the latest additions to our digital scores collection; find them, and many others, in Digital Scores and Libretti:

Les deux journées : opéra comique en 3 actes / paroles de J.N. Bouilly; musique de Cherubini; partition de piano et chant. Paris: M. Schlesinger, [1837?]. Mus 637.1.663

A vocal score of Cherubini’s most successful opera, premiered in 1800 at the Théâtre Feydeau and repeatedly revived during the first half of the nineteenth century. Bouilly purportedly based his libretto – a story of political persecution, disguises, narrow escapes, and eventual reconciliations – on events he witnessed during the French Revolution, but the action of Les deux journées is shifted to 1647, during Cardinal Mazarin’s time as Chief Minister.

Faniska

Cherubini’s only Singspiel, written for the Theater am Kärntnertor in Vienna and premiered on February 25, 1806. Joseph Sonnleithner’s libretto, based on Pixérécourt’s melodrama Les Mines de Pologne, bears some similarity to the captivity and rescue plot of Lodoïska, down to the dramatic third-act attack on the villain’s castle.

• Faniska : eine grosse Oper in drey Akten ; vollständiger Klavierauszug von A. E. Müller. Leipzig : A. Kühnel, [between 1806 and 1809]. Mus 637.1.690

  This copy of an early vocal score has a two-page manuscript of Oranski’s part of the 1st act Terzetto, in an unidentified hand, tipped in following the printed score.
   

• Faniska : opéra en trois actes : représenté à Vienne le 25 Février 1806 : paroles italiennes / musique de Cherubini ; avec accompagnement de piano par A. Fessy. Paris : Chez tous les editeurs de musique ; Leipzig : Chez Breitkopf et Haertel, [184-?]. Merritt Room Mus 637.1.685

  An Italian full score of the opera.

Medea : tragedia in trè atti / di L. Cherubini. Milano : R. Fantuzzi, [1910?]. Mus 637.1.645.5

While Médée was revived in several German productions during the nineteenth century, its first performance in Italy did not occur until December 30, 1909. La Scala used an Italian version by Carlo Zangarini, with Franz Paul Lachner’s recitative settings of the dialogue, composed for the 1855 Frankfurt production.

This edition of the vocal score features a title page illustration by the painter and theatrical designer Giuseppe Palanti, known to La Scala audiences for his set and costume designs, as well as the advertising posters he created for the publishing house Ricordi.¹

- Kerry Masteller

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1. See Vittoria Crespi Morbio, “Il teatro,” in Giuseppe Palanti: Pittura, teatro, pubblicità, disegno, 66-84 (Torino: U. Allemandi, c2001).

We’ve added a number of scores to our collection of Digital Scores and Libretti, including this set of late 18th and early 19th century operas:

Johann Christian Bach

Amadis des Gaules: tragedie lyrique de Quinault reduite en trois actes … Représentée pour la premiere fois au théatre de l’Académie royale de musique le quinze decembre 1779. Mise en musique par Jean Chretien Bach. Paris.: Sieber, [1780?].
Merritt Room Mus 627.3.604, RISM A/I, B 167

Johann Christian Bach’s only French tragédie lyrique was premiered by the Académie Royale de Musique on December 14, 1779, to virtually universal distaste. As Friedrich Melchior Grimm wrote in an issue of the Correspondance littéraire, a journal covering the cultural events of Paris,

The Amadis of Mr. Bach…appeared for the first time this Tuesday the 14th and has not fulfilled our expectations….while it’s always good enough, it’s never more, and one cannot hide that, in this work at least, the whole of the composition lacks heat and effect. The Gluckists found it had neither the originality of Gluck, nor his sublime élan; the Piccinists, that his song had neither the charm nor the variety of melody of Piccinni.¹

Luigi Cherubini

Lodoïska : opéra en 3 actes / paroles de Filette Loraux ; musique de Cherubini ; partition de piano et chant. Paris : M. Schlesinger, [1837?].
Merritt Room Mus 637.1.627.5

The first French edition of the vocal score.

Lodoïska, which premiered at the Théâtre Feydeau on July 18, 1791, was a great success. Based on an episode from the popular novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas, Lodoïska is notable not only for its music but also for its spectacle: the third act ends as a troop of Tatar soldiers burn the castle in which Lodoïska has been imprisoned by the villain Dourlinski.

Medea : Oper in drei Akten / Musik von L. Cherubini. Vollständiger Klavierauszug. Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel [1855?].
Merritt Room Mus 637.1.643.3

A vocal score, in German and French, of the opéra comique Médée, premiered at the Théâtre Feydeau, 13 March 1797. While the opera was not especially popular in France, it was given multiple German-language revivals in Berlin, Vienna, and other cities. This edition, though it dates from around 1855, does not include the recitative settings of the dialogue composed by Franz Paul Lachner for the 1855 Frankfurt production. (It may be worth noting that its extended passages of dialogue, not its subject, cause Médée to be classified as an opéra comique.)

Anacréon, ou, L’amour fugitive : opéra ballet en deux actes / par le C.R. Mendouze ; mis en musique par Chérubini. A Paris : Au magasin de musique dirigé par MMrs. Chérubini, Méhul, Kreutzer, Rode N. Isouard et Boieldieu rue de la Loi, no. 268 vis-à-vis celle Ménars ; A Lyon : chez Garnier, Place de la Comédie no. 18, [1803].
Merritt Room Mus 637.1.602, RISM A/I, CC 2028 I, 79

A full score of Cherubini’s first, and unsuccessful, opéra-ballet, premiered at the Opéra on October 4, 1803. While the opera itself is rarely performed (the first revival didn’t occur until 1971), the overture – borrowed from his cantata Amphion – remains a popular concert piece.

-Kerry Masteller

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1. See Friedrich Melchior Grimm, Correspondance, littéraire, philosophique et critique par Grimm, Diderot, Raynal, Meister, etc…., (Paris, Garnier frères, 1880), 12:350.