Contraste "du Classique au Jazz" Concert Program
Collection — Box: GTM Shared Box 47 (Oversized), Folder: 1
Identifier: GTM-20250411
Les Productions fumière présentent CONTRASTE "du Classique au Jazz." Theatre National du Palais de Chaillot, Paris, 15 Juin, 1945. Upright folio. 56 pp. Gray wrappers with raised embossed printing, bound with French red/white/blue twisted silk cord. Semigloss pages printed in black and white with blue highlighting, and including many illustration pages and some advertisements, interspersed with heavy stock pages, some with tipped-in semigloss reproductions of historic documents. Stamped 111 from a total edition of 1000 copies printed. Wrappers somewhat foxed, else fine. From the collection of Parisian art dealer and collector Michel de Bry (1890-1970), who with the legendary jazz impresario Hugues Panassié, organized the historic 1948 Festival International du Jazz in Nice.
[Provided by Schubertiade Music and Arts]
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Souvenir program from a June 15, 1945 Paris festival concert organized by the Mouvement de Libération Nationale and presided over by General Pierre Dejussieu-Poncarral, leader of the French Resistance, "upon return from the Nazi Concentration Camps Buchenwald, Dora and Belsen," just a few weeks after the signing of the Armistice and less than a year after the liberation of Paris.
The concert concept was "Contrast 'from Classical to Jazz' - Two Expressions Characterized by One Same Thought: MUSIC" and the central heavy-stock central program sheet features, on the left, the musical offerings in the section "Du Classique," and on the facing right page, "Du Jazz." Classical works by Rimsky-Korsakow, Berlioz, Moussorgsky, Saint-Saens, Lalo, Mozart, Rossini, Gounod and Tchaikovsky were performed by the Orchestre des Concerts Colonne under the direction of Georges Tzipine; opera singers Paul Cabanel, Jean Babilée, and Odette Turba-Rabier; violinist Roland Charmy; and ballerina Solange Schwartz. The Jazz section consisted of performances by the Hot Club de France with Jerry Mengo, Hubert Rostaing and Arthur Briggs; singer Georges Ulmer; pianist Léo Chauliac; duo singers Les Soeurs Étienne, and a swing dance couple. Finally, the program concluded with a performance of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," (presumably to show the fusing of "contrasting" idioms), and a recitation by Robert Vidalin of the Comédie Française ("returned from London"), of a selection of "Poems of the Resistance."
The included texts are by Pierre Duvauchelle (Birth of Chamber Music), Charles Delaunay (Jazz), Darius Milhaud (French Music since 1918), André Joucla-Rua (Measures), William Dod (George Gershwin) and Guy Dumazert (Erik Satie). The program also features numerous illustrations ("Some Gods of Classical Music," "Music across the Ages," "Harlem, Capital of Swing," "Contrast" in art, positioning an Ingres nude beside one by Picasso, "Contrast" in poetry, with Racine vs. Tzara, etc.), full-page images of all of the performers, and tipped-in reproductions of Beethoven's Heiligenstadt Testament and letters and documents from Hector Berlioz.
Perhaps the most notable contribution to the program's texts, is by Charles Delaunay. Son of painters Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay, he was one of the founders of the Hot Club de France, which performed at this concert. Together with Hugues Panassié he initiated the Quintette du Hot Club de France with Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli. During World War II Delaunay continued leading the Hot Club, but was a member of the Resistance. In 1948 Delaunay founded the record label Disques Vogue and was the author of the famous Hot Discography, the first jazz discography.
[Provided by Schubertiade Music and Arts]
0.01 Cubic Feet (1 folder)
French
Purchased from Schubertiade Music and Arts with the Leon Robbin Library Endowment Fund, 2025.
The collection has been rehoused in an acid-free box and folder.
Part of the Georgetown University Manuscripts Repository