Principes du Violon pour Apprendre le Doigté de Cet Instrument, et les Différens Agrémens Dont Il Est Susceptible.
Paris: Chez I'Auteur, [Chez] Le Clerc, [1761]
First edition, variant issue, prior to the Des Lauriers issue which has been dated 1761 but is now accepted as a second edition of 1772. Quarto (330 x 255 mm overall, the pages 324 x 244mm). Entirely engraved by Gerardin, printed by Courbet on fine, thick laid paper. Contemporary half vellum paste paper boards, rebacked with parchment, facsimile paper spine label, all edges stained red. Collates [1 l.], 1 l. (title recto, dedication verso), pp. 1-81 (explication and 80 pp. engraved music), 1. p. (Le Clerc advertisements), [1 l.]. Front blank supplied, covers rubbed with some flaking of paste paper, spine parchment soiled, paper uniformly slightly browned, negligible scattered spots.
[together with] L’Abbé le Fils, Principes du Violon 1761: Édition en fac-similé avec introduction par Aristide Wirsta (Paris: Centre Documentation Universitaire, 1961), quarto (315 x 240 mm), the bicentennial facsimile edition, a photolithographic reproduction of Wirsta’s early issue copy of the first edition, with a preface by Jacques Chailley, foreword by Eugene Borrell and introduction by Aristide Wirsta, publisher’s paper self-covers, 2 ll. (title and facsimile title), xx pp., 2 ll., 81 pp., stapled, a very good copy from the library of Albert Mell (his signature on front cover). Both titles contained in a clamshell box by Nello Nanni, quarter tan morocco with raised bands and gilt tooling over granite Cave paper.
Joseph-Barnabé Saint-Sevin, dit “L'Abbé le fils”
(1727-1803), child prodigy from an eminent musical family, entered the orchestra
of the Comédie Française at eleven, played at the Concert
Spirituel at thirteen and joined the Opéra at fifteen. “More
than three dozen solo performances [by] 1754 established him as one of the
finest violinists of the mid-eighteenth century” (New Grove Dictionary,
2d ed. 2001, v. 14, p. 82). His Principes du Violon is considered,
with Leopold Mozart’s Violinschule, a seminal work in modern
violin instruction, and “the first serious French method of the 18th
century before L’Art du Violon (1798) of J. B. Cartier, but
Cartier himself borrowed generously from it” (Mell, op. cit.,
pp. 410-1).
This edition of Principes du Violon “Chez l’Auteur/
[Chez] Le Clerc Marchand,” noted in Annonces, 22 janvier
1761, p. 54, is exceptionally rare. RISM A/I/7 p. 308 (1978) records three
other copies of the 1761 first edition (S381): Münster Santini-Bibliothek,
Conservatoire de Paris and New York Public Library (Drexel Collection).
Of the 1772 Des Lauriers second edition (S382) RISM records seven copies,
to which KVK and WorldCat add three others. ABPC records no copies of either
edition appearing at auction in the last thirty years. Two copies with the
author's imprint (coll. Aristide Wirsta, op. cit.; NYPL) have the
author’s autograph signature “L’Abbé fils”
on the last page. The present copy bears a (possibly overwritten) price
of 72. f (instead of 12. f) and a variant address for the author and an
additional address for Le Clerc. Additionally, its printer is Courbet (Chouin
for the NYPL copy, none named on the cover of the Wirsta copy); its dedication
page is on the title leaf verso rather than a new leaf recto; and it has
a final page with Le Clerc’s advertisements. The present copy is therefore
a copy of the first edition which Le Clerc caused to be printed after the
earliest issues; Le Clerc’s privilège was still in
force on August 21, 1765. See Wirsta, infra at p. xviiii,
n. 7.
References:
La Laurencie, Lionel de, L'école française de violon de Lully à Viotti (Genève and Paris: Éditions Minkoff, 1991), v. II, p. 221; v. III, pp. 51-8.
Mell, Albert, [review], Journal of the American Musicological Society, v. 16, no. 3 (Autumn, 1963), pp. 409-11.
Pincherle, Marc, [review], Revue de Musicologie, v. 47e, no. 124e (December, 1961), pp. 217-9.
[Wirsta, Aristide, ed.] L’Abbé le Fils, Principes du Violon 1761: Édition en fac-similé avec introduction par Aristide Wirsta (Paris: Centre Documentation Universitaire, 1961).
Provenance:
George Berg (ca. 1730-1775) (inscribed “Mister Berg[e]” on front and rear pastedowns), German-English composer, violinist and organist (member Royal Society of Musicians in 1763; by 1771 organist at St. Mary-at-Hill in Billingsgate); possibly his sale, A Catalogue of the Valuable and Scarce Collection of Music, by the Most Eminent composers, Fine Ton’d Instruments, Books &c, Late the Property of Mr George Berg, dec., Christie’s, March 8-9, 1776.
François Lavaulx de Vrécourt (1735- ) (inscribed on title, “Le Chevalier de Vrécourt”), commissioned a colonel of engineers in the Continental Army, April 12, 1777, on the reference of Benjamin Franklin to George Washington; see Papers of George Washington, Revolutionary War Series, v. 9, pp. 112-5 (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1999); Alain Petiot, Au service des Habsbourg, pp. 81, 116 (Paris: Messene, 2000).
John Kilty (1756-1811) (inscribed on title, “John Kilty 1785”),
captain in the Continental Army and later Mayor of Annapolis and Adjutant
General of Maryland; see Archives of Maryland (Biographical Series),
Maryland Historical Magazine, v. VI, p. 357 (Baltimore: Maryland Historical
Society, 1911).
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