The oratorio manuscript Saint Francis of Assisi by Charles Gounod (1818-1893) has long been the object of fantasies among musicologists. They only knew of its existence from the echoes of its creation, Good Friday 1891. This short oratorio in two parts for two soloists (tenor and bass), choir and orchestra of a very Franciscan simplicity dates from the last period of the composer of Faust.
It was acquired in London on July 14, 2020 by the National Library of France for an amount of 11,000 pounds (plus fees and taxes i.e. 13,750 pounds, 15,735 €) at Sotheby’s, where it was auctioned for the third time. In two years.
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Disappeared at the death of its author, Saint Francis of Assisi did not reappear until 1992, following a letter from the Provincial Superior of the Sisters of Charity of Saint Louis, mother Nicole Jégo, to Pascal Escande, founding director of the Festival d’Auvers-sur-Oise. It mentions the existence of a manuscript by Gounod in the library of his community in Vannes.
« Came to meet me, relates Pascal Escande, so that I tell her if this score would be of interest to the festival, she informed me that she had requests from antiques for the purchase of this manuscript. After she had entrusted it to me, I noticed that the full leather-bound score by the painter Carolus Duran, annotated and dedicated by Gounod, corresponded to the Saint Francis of Assisi. »
A recreation in… 1996
This manuscript, found on the death of Sister Aimée de Marie, Superior of the Sisters of Charity of Saint-Louis, was without indication of provenance. Since its reappearance, the work has therefore been preserved by the religious congregation, without anyone knowing. Until its recreation, on June 20, 1996 in Saint-Maclou Cathedral in Pontoise, taken over twenty years later, in 2016, still as part of the Festival d’Auvers-sur-Oise: Laurence Equilbey directed the performance which was also registered (1).
But the manuscript remained the property of the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Saint-Louis. Until it was incidentally spotted in a Sotheby’s auction catalog in December 2018.
Now accessible to the public
The manuscript being sold in London, its preemption by the National Library of France was impossible, recalls Mathias Auclair, director of the Department of Music who continues: “Considering its first estimate, more than 15,000 pounds, it was inaccessible to us without a patron. Luckily he was withdrawn from the sale but reappeared six months later. Having found a patron, AFER (2), thanks to Laurence Equilbey, we prepared to acquire it, but it was once again withdrawn. The third time will have been the good one! “
On July 14, 2020, the manuscript joined the three million documents found in the music department of the BnF where it is now accessible to the public (3). “The only criterion for the acquisition of manuscripts by the BnF, observes Mathias Auclair, is the usefulness of documents for researchers and for the life of works. Thus, we have just acquired, still from the hand of Gounod, 128 pages of unpublished music by his Faust… »
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