HAYDN JOSEPH (1732-1809) Lot n° 23

L.S. "Joseph Haydn," Vienna April 7, 1808, to the Société académique des Enfans d'Apollon; 2 pages in-4 (collector's ink stamps, letter mounted on tabs in an in-fol, blue cardboard); in French. Nice letter from the end of his life declining the proposal to be a member of a Parisian musical society. [Created in 1741, the Société académique des Enfants d'Apollon organized concerts, in which amateurs played with professionals. It played several Haydn symphonies to Parisian audiences]. "The choice that the Academic Society of the Children of Apollo has deigned to make by inscribing my name on the list of its members, is as flattering to me as it is to me of the most lively sensitivity. By assuring her through your organ, that she could not honor anyone, more made to appreciate her esteem, and more suitable to feel the price of the honor which is the result, I beg you Gentlemen, to suffer that my feelings are explained after yours, and to be at the same time the interpreters of my recognition of the distinctive marks that you have transmitted to me, for the sending of a copy of the Statutes and regulations, accompanied by a gold medal You have put some flowers on the path of life, which I still have to walk. I am deeply touched by this, and I feel strongly that old age may well weaken the faculties, but that it does not take anything away from sensitivity, for it is this that makes me regret that my great age forbids me to nourish the hope of seeing myself among you, to share your work, to cooperate in the cultivation of an art that is the charm of society, and to participate in the fame that the Academy enjoys in such dear and precious ways. It is a consolation which my infirmities force me to renounce; and my regrets are as lively as my gratitude is deeply felt." ..... Haydn, Gesammelte Briefe, ed. P. Bartha (1965, n° 378). PROVENANCE Société Académique des Enfans d'Apollon (ink stamp at the head of the letter); sale Gerd Rosen, Berlin, 28-29 April 1950 (Auktion 11, no. 27); Lucien Goldschmidt; Dr. Max Thorek, Chicago (his ink stamp on the 2nd page; his sale: Parke Bernet, New York, November 15-16, 1960).