The Styrous® Viewfinder: Camille Saint-Saëns

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December 30, 2023

20,000 vinyl LPs 348: André Messager ~ Véronique

vinyl LP box cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

Today is the birthday of French composer, organist, pianist and conductor, André Charles Prosper Messager. His compositions include eight ballets and thirty opéras comiques, opérettes and other stage works, among which his ballet Les Deux Pigeons (1886) and opéra comique Véronique (1898) have had lasting success; Les p'tites Michu (1897) and Monsieur Beaucaire (1919) were also popular internationally. André Messager was born on December 30, 1911, in Cadegliano-Viconago, Italy, near Lake Maggiore and the Swiss border. He is primarily known for his output of 25 operas.

This recording of Véronique was housed in a boxed set of two records with a 12" x 12" libretto with info and photos included.

André Messager ~ Véronique

vinyl LP box cover

photo by Styrous®

Messager studied composition with Camille Saint-Saëns and Gabriel Fauré. He became a major figure in the musical life of Paris and later London, both as a conductor and a composer. Many of his Parisian works were also produced in the West End and some on Broadway; the most successful had long runs and numerous international revivals. He wrote two operatic works in English, and his later output included musical comedies for French stage and film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright, Sacha Guitry and French singer and actress, Yvonne Printemps.

Véronique is an opéra comique in three acts with music by André Messager and words by Georges Duval and Albert Vanloo. The opera, set in 1840 Paris, depicts a dashing but irresponsible aristocrat with complicated romantic affairs, who is eventually paired with the resourceful heroine, Véronique. It premiered in Paris in 1898. The "Hit" from the show is De-ci, de là which predates the Gilbert & Sullivan patter songs by twenty years.

Véronique poster - 1898

illustration by René Pean

Tracklist:

Side 1:

A1 - Ouverture 2:25
A2 - Quelle Fraîcheur Délicieuse - 1:35
A3 - Ah! La Charmante Promenade - 2:15
A4 - Vrai Dieu! Mes Bons Amis - 2:10
A5 - Alors Tout Est Fini - 3:30
A6 - Petite Dinde - 1:40
A7 - Final Du 1er Acte - 6:50

Side 2:

B2 - Ah Méchante, Vous Voulez Rire (Duo De L'Escarpolette) - 4:40
B3 - Une Grisette Mignonne - 1:1 - 2:00
B5 - Puisque L'Ingrate Véronique - 2:00
B6 - Voyons, Ma Tante - 2:10
B8 - Ma Foi Pour Venir De Province - 1:50
B9 - Eh Bien, Par Ordre Procédons - 3:00
B10 - Final: Par Une Faveur Insigne - 1:15

Credits:

    Artwork – OKley*
    Conductor – Jacques Météhen
    Lyrics By – A. Vanloo*, G. Duval*
    Music By – André Messager
    Orchestra, Choir – L'Orchestre De Jacques Météhen
    Photography By – C.M. Benoit

Notes:

Printed in France - Made in France

Gatefold sleeve

Barcode and Other Identifiers

    Matrix / Runout: CBS 63646 A
    Matrix / Runout: CBS 63646 B
    Rights Society: BIEM

André Messager – Véronique
Label:   CBS – S 63 646
Series:   Opérettes Célèbres
Format:   Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Stereo, Gatefold
Country: France
Released: 1969
Genre: Classical
Style: Operetta

Viewfinder links:

Gabriel Fauré

André Messager

Yvonne Printemps

Camille Saint-Saëns

Net links:

YouTube links:

Véronique

Véronique ~ De-ci, de là

Styrous® ~ Sunday, July 19, 2020

20,000 Vinyl LPs Archive
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October 1, 2018

Paul Dukas, The Sorcerer & Mickey Mouse

Today, October 1, is the birthday of Paul Dukas, the French composer, critic, scholar and teacher.

Next month, on November 18, Mickey Mouse turns ninety. What on earth do they have in common you might ask.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice (L'apprenti sorcier), by Dukas, was instrumental in elevating Mickey Mouse to classical music stardom. In the mouse's honor there will be two blogs on his birthday that have been fun to research.

Although The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the work Dukas is most known for, was already a popular concert piece, it was brought to a much vaster audience through its inclusion in the 1940 Walt Disney animated concert film Fantasia, in which Mickey Mouse plays the role of the apprentice. Disney had acquired the music rights in 1937 when he planned to release a separate Mickey Mouse film, which, at the suggestion of Leopold Stokowski, was eventually expanded into Fantasia (link below).

Fantasia soundtrack album cover

Mickey Mouse as the Apprentice

Stokowski's version for the soundtrack of Fantasia remains one of the most famous interpretations of the work. Although too early for high fidelity, the performance was recorded using multi-tracks and was the first use of stereophonic sound in a film. It is the only part of the film for which Stokowski conducted a studio orchestra, rather than the Philadelphia Orchestra. The New York Times and Variety gave it rave reviews when it premiered on November 14, 1940 at the Broadway Theater (links below).

In terms of the story-line of the film, the sorcerer's final anger with his apprentice which appears in Fantasia does not appear in the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe poem, Der Zauberlehrling, which was the basis for the tone poem.

Mickey Mouse & Leopold Stokowski

Dukas was born in Paris in 1865. His father, Jules Dukas, was a banker, and his mother, Eugénie, was a pianist. His mother died when he was five years old. He took piano lessons, but showed no unusual musical talent until he was 14 when he began to compose while recovering from an illness. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the end of 1881, aged 16, and studied piano with Georges Mathias, harmony with Théodore Dubois and composition with Ernest Guiraud. Among his fellow students was Claude Debussy, with whom Dukas formed a close friendship.

Dukas's teachers, Georges Mathias (top l.), Théodore Dubois (top r.)

Ernest Guiraud (bottom l.), Dukas's fellow student Claude Debussy

Two early overtures survive from this period, Goetz de Berlichingen (1883) and Le Roi Lear (1883). The manuscript of the latter was rediscovered in the 1990s and the work was performed for the first time in 1995.

In the decade after L'apprenti sorcier, Dukas completed two complex and technically demanding large-scale works for solo piano: the Piano Sonata (1901), dedicated to Saint-Saëns, and Variations, Interlude and Finale on a Theme by Rameau (1902). His last major work was the sumptuous oriental ballet La Péri (1912). Described by the composer as a "poème dansé".

Costume design by Léon Bakst for Dukas's La Péri - 1922

Dukas was a perfectionist and destroyed many of his pieces out of dissatisfaction with them. Only a few of his compositions remain.

In 1920, he became a member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium. He was appointed professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1927. He also taught at the École Normale de Musique in Paris.

In the last years of his life, Dukas became well known as a teacher of composition. His students included Jehan Alain, Elsa Barraine, Yvonne Desportes, Francis Chagrin, Carlos Chávez, Maurice Duruflé, Georges Hugon, Jean Langlais, Olivier Messiaen, Manuel Ponce, Joaquín Rodrigo, David Van Vactor and Xian Xinghai.