Autograph letter signed ('Claude Debussy') to [Lorenzo Parodi], 80, avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 17 February 1910

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Autograph letter signed ('Claude Debussy') to [Lorenzo Parodi], 80, avenue du Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 17 February 1910
In French. 1½ pages, 214 x 180mm, with accompanying autograph transcription, one page, 150 x 113mm. Envelope. Provenance: Sotheby's, 6 December 1996, lot 65.

Reports of a scandalous refusal to perform Pelléas et Mélisande in Genoa. The recipient has asked Debussy to come to Genoa to supervise a performance of Pelléas et Mélisande, and Debussy writes of his regret that he cannot come immediately: 'I have just been ill, and I absolutely must be present at the rehearsals of a new work of mine which is being performed at the Concerts-Colonne on Sunday (20 February) ... Nobody regrets this more than me, being sure of the sympathy of the Genoese, and then there are indications on the dramatic movement of Pelléas which I can only give in an effective way if I am on the spot'. Debussy goes on to ask for Parodi's view of an extraordinary report which appeared in the journal Gil Blas on the previous day (he provides a transcription) that the orchestra and singers in Genoa were refusing to continue with rehearsals of Pelléas, with the words 'It's too difficult! ... And it isn't music!'. Debussy remarks that 'it is the first time, as far as I know, that performers, singers, assume the right to refuse to play a work announced in the programme of a theatre...!'. He therefore asks Parodi what is really happening: 'Is it true, or rather has not a little upset between artists and managers been simply blown up, as may happen anywhere?'.

Lorenzo Parodi (1856-1926) was a Genoese composer and critic. The work whose premiere Debussy was to attend on 20 February 1910 was 'Ibéria' from Images pour orchestre, which was to be performed by the Orchestra Colonne under Gabriel Pierné at the Théâtre du Châtelet.