Frédéric CHOPIN sends his Preludes from Valldemosa. 1839

Frédéric Chopin (1810.1849)

Autograph letter signed to Camille Pleyel.

Three pages in-8°. Remains of red wax seal. Autograph address.

Charterhouse of Valldemosa, near Palma de Mallorca. January 22, 1839.

“I am finally sending you my Preludes – which I finished on your piannino arrived in the best possible condition. »

Extraordinary and very precious letter from Chopin sending his Préludes to Camille Pleyel. One of the very rare letters from the composer sent from Majorca, the last before his return to France in March 1839.

“Dear friend, I am finally sending you my Preludes – which I finished on your piannino arrived in the best possible condition despite the sea, the bad weather and the customs of Palma. I have asked Fontana to give you my manuscript. I want fifteen hundred francs for France and England. Probst, as you know, owns it for a thousand francs for Haertel in Germany. I am free of engagement with Wessel in London; he can pay more. When you think about it, you will give the money to Fontana. I don't want to shoot you here because I don't know a banker in Palma. Since you wanted, darling, to take on the chore of being my editor, I must warn you that there are still manuscripts at your disposal .

 1mo. The Ballad (which is still part of Probst's commitments for Germany). This Ballad – I want a thousand francs for France and England. 2do. Two Polish women (one of whom you know in there) I want one thousand five hundred francs for all the countries on the globe . 3°. A 3rd Scherzo – same price as the Polish ones for all of Europe . It will happen on your back if you want it from month to month until the arrival of the author who will tell you more than he knows how to write.

 I only heard from you indirectly through Fontana who wrote to me that you were doing better. The posts here are wonderfully organized. I'm waiting three months for a letter from my people in Warsaw! And yours ? Ms. Pleyel? Mr., Mrs. Denoyers? Tell them all my best wishes for the year 39. I am waiting for a letter from you, very small, very small, and love you as always. Your all devoted. F. Chopin. Forgive my spelling. I realize that I haven't thanked you for the piano, and that I'm only talking to you about the money. Clearly I am a businessman! »

Correspondence of Frédéric Chopin, BE Sydow, Volume II, n° 290, p. 291.

Former Alfred Cortot collection (stamp on the 1st ^sheet ).

Tiny loss in the right margin without affecting the text.

George Sand was at the initiative of this stay on the island of Majorca, perhaps to remove his two children Solange and Maurice from the influence of their father Baron Dudevant, or to improve the feverish state of young Maurice. What appeared to be an idyllic vacation turned into a nightmare despite the majestic appeal of the Chartreuse de Valldemosa, a former Carthusian convent disused since 1835, where George Sand, his two children and Chopin settled in mid-December 1838. Landed on the island in November 1838, they did not leave until the following spring (in March 1839), forced to spend the winter, prisoners of the isolation of the inhospitable convent. “ Chopin cannot overcome the restlessness of his imagination. The cloister was full of terrors and ghosts ” writes George Sand in “Story of my life”. Several of the Preludes composed in Valldemosa were born from his anxieties, including the famous Prelude No. 15, known as “ The drop of water ”: “ His composition that evening was full of drops of rain which resonated on the sound tiles of the Chartreuse, but they were translated in his imagination and in his song by tears falling from heaven on his heart. His mind was flayed alive; the fold of a rose leaf, the shadow of a fly made it bleed ” (id, ibid).

In addition to the Preludes , Chopin composed or completed several major works there to which he alludes in this letter:

– the Ballade in F major (opus 38, published in 1840 under the publisher's title “ La Gracieuse ”. This ballad is dedicated to Schumann, who himself dedicated his Kreisleriana to Chopin).

– the Two Polish Twins (this is opus 40, dedicated to his friend the pianist Julien Fontana).

– the Third Scherzo. : (opus 39 dedicated to Adolf Gutmann (student of Chopin), published in 1840 (by Breitkopf & Härtel and Troupenas).

– The “ Vingt Quatre préludes ” (opus 28) are dedicated to Camille Pleyel (and for the German edition, J.-C. Kessler)

“ It was there (in Valldemosa) that he composed the most beautiful of these short pages which he modestly entitled Preludes. They are masterpieces. Many present to the mind visions of deceased monks and the hearing of funeral chants which besieged it; others are melancholic and sweet: they came to him in hours of sunshine and health, to the sound of children's laughter under the window, to the distant sound of guitars, to the singing of birds under the damp foliage, to the sight of little roses pale flowers blooming on the snow. Still others are of a gloomy sadness and by charming your ear they break your heart ” writes George Sand again.

Ignace and Camille Pleyel are among the great piano makers of the 19th century with Érard. Chopin met Camille Pleyel through Édouard Herbault, his associate. The understanding was immediate. Son of Ignace Pleyel (an Austrian composer, favorite student of Haydn, music publisher and founder of the piano factory, settled in Paris in 1795), Camille Pleyel, who succeeded his father in 1831, is an excellent trained pianist in England. He shares with Chopin “ a noble simplicity and an art speaking of the cantabile ”, as described by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, in his book on the friendship between Chopin and Pleyel. “ Today there is only one man who knows how to play Mozart, and that is Pleyel ,” Chopin often said of him. Upon his arrival in Paris at the end of 1831, Frédéric Chopin made himself the man of a single piano, the Pleyel piano, whose subtle sounds he appreciated. Chopin resisted to the end the temptation of the comfort of Érard instruments, preferring the sonic “ truth ” of the Pleyels.

Barely having landed on the island of Majorca, Chopin asked Pleyel for a piano; he wrote to him in a letter of November 1838: “ Monpiano has not yet arrived. How did you send it? by Marseille or by Perpignan? I dream of music but I don't do it, because here we don't have pianos... It's a wild country in that respect . After various procrastination (the piano, coming from Marseille, had been blocked at customs in Palma, against the demand for a ransom), the piano finally arrived at the Chartreuse, Chopin speaks of a " pianino " that is to say i.e. an upright piano with 6 octaves.