STRAVINSKY, IGOR. (1882-1971). Russian-born, American composer of The Rite of Spring, Petroushka, The Firebird, and many other 20th-century masterpieces. TLS. (“I Stravinsky with a lengthy postscript initialed I Str.”). 1p. 4to. Sancellemoz, November 24, 1937. Typed on Sancellemoz stationery to his friend, French composer and critic ALEXIS ROLAND-MANUEL (1891-1966). In French with translation.

“Thank you for your lines of the 23rd inst. The fact that you are writing me on the part of the P.T.T. makes me think that you have accepted their proposition, for which I am delighted, for it is a good acquisition for the said P.T.T. and a satisfying solution, I hope, for you.

This is already the third time that the PTT has confirmed to me the date of December 6 for my concert without deciding to respond to my letter written a week ago to Mr. Bondeville in which I demanded that he tell me as soon as possible the dates of the six rehearsals I require to prepare the orchestra properly for Oedipe and Jeu de Cartes. I have also informed them of my uneasiness regarding how little time remains for Oedipe (chorus and soloists) for which instead of an answer I have been expecting with a growing impatience, I received at the same time a letter from Mr. G. Paitchadze (L’Edition Russe on the rue d’Anjou) telling me that it was only Monday (i.e., before yesterday!) that he was looking for the material for Oedipe. Thus, five precious days lost by the chorus and soloists for studying Oedipe. Why? Negligence? Indifference? Mr. Bondeville had given me a completely different impression.

For Jeu de Cartes there is an integral execution about which there was a question in our last interview with Mr. Bondeville, which I find everywhere; there is not a symphonic version of this ballet (despite the ardent desire of the conductor whom you know) for the good reason that the musical construction of the piece responds to all exigencies of a platform of symphonic concerts. The fact that the gentlemen are asking you for the nomenclature of the instruments for Jeu de Cartes, leads me to conclude that the material for this music is still not in their hands. Why?

Enclosed you will find the table of the pieces composing the three Deals of Jeu de Cartes. Information which will perhaps be printed in the programs for the December 6 concert.

While waiting for an answer at least from you, my dear friend, I am sending you all my solidly inveterate salutations.

My wife thanks you very much for your kind messages. Happily, for the moment, she is doing a bit better, which is unfortunately not the case for my married daughter, her health (also the lungs) worries me. [In holograph] Yours truly I. Stravinsky”

Stravinsky adds a handwritten note in the letter’s upper margin:

“Jeu de Cartes: also enclosed an ‘analysis’ by Edwin Evans (that poor old Evans), which does not seem to be the product of a grandiloquence nor of a perceptive spirit. You will send it back to me, will you not, when you do not need it any longer. I return the 30th. I Str.”

Stravinsky’s 1927 opera Oedipus Rex was based on Jean Cocteau’s French libretto taken from Sophocles’ tragedy and was sung in Latin. In 1935, the American Ballet commissioned Stravinsky’s three-part ballet Jeu de Cartes, inspired by Stravinsky’s love of poker, which he organized into three “deals,” mentioned in our letter. It premiered as part of a Stravinsky Festival organized at the Metropolitan Opera by George Balanchine in April 1937 under Stravinsky’s baton. The ballet had its European premiere October 13 of the same year, a month prior to our letter, which refers to an upcoming performance of both works for French Radio Station de l’École Supérieure des PTT.

Prior to World War I, Stravinsky and his wife Catherine, along with their growing family, routinely spent summers in Russia and winters in Switzerland, where Catherine was treated for tuberculosis and the couple’s third and fourth children were born. The war and the subsequent Russian Revolution barred their reentry into Russia and made them year-round residents of Switzerland from 1915 to 1920, after which Igor relocated to Paris.

Our letter was written from the French sanitorium Sancellemoz, where Catherine and their daughters, Ludmila and Milena, were ill with tuberculosis. Ludmila died in November 1938 and Catherine the following March; Milena recovered and lived until 2013.

Roland-Manuel regularly visited Stravinsky in Sancellemoz. A student of Vincent d’Indy and Albert Roussel, he was a friend of Erik Satie who introduced Roland-Manuel to Maurice Ravel, who became his teacher and the subject of Roland-Manuel’s biography. He taught at the Paris Conservatoire from 1947-1961, during which time he helped write Stravinsky’s theoretical work The Poetics of Music.

French composer Emmanuel Bondeville (1898-1987) was long associated with French radio including Radio Tour Eiffel, Radio Paris, Radiodiffusion française, and Radio Monte-Carlo. After World War II, he led both the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra de Paris.

Manager of the Paris office of music publisher Édition Russe de Musique, Gavriil (Gabriel) Grigorievich Paitchadze (1883-1976), represented Koussevitzky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Grechaninov, and Stravinsky.

As a music critic for the Pall Mall Gazette and Daily Mail Edwin Evans (1874-1945) championed the works of such French composers as Claude Debussy, Henri Duparc, Paul Dukas, Gabriel Fauré, and Maurice Ravel as well as Russian composers associated with the Ballet Russes. He was also a founder and president of the International Society for Contemporary Music.

Folded with several marginal notes, light staining and wear. An excellent letter in very fine condition.