1845 Jules PERROT & Carlotta GRISI Opera Polka BRANDARD MUSIC COVER M&N Hanhart

Description

Offered here is an original hand-colored lithographed music cover (+ 2 pages of music), containing one of the best-known prints of the famed Jules Perrot / Carlotta Grisi ballet partnership.
The title
:
The Opera Polka, as danced by Mlle. Carlotta Grisi & M. Perrot the music by Signor Pugni. Also, the original Polka by Jullien, as danced at the Nobility's Balls & performed at every theatre in London, Paris, Vienna, &c...
The artist
: John Brandard (1812-1863), an English lithographic artist, was a master of the illustrated sheet music cover, designing hundreds of title pages, primarily for ballets and operas.
Description:
Folio. Lithograph by and after John Brandard, printed by M & N Hanhart, hand-coloured with red and heightened with silver within Jullien's characteristic decorative gilt border. 1f. (recto title, verso blank), 2 pp. of engraved music.
Reference: Sitwell: The Romantic Ballet in Lithographs of the Time, no. 108, plate 73.
Ivor Guest in
The International Encyclopedia of Dance
, Vol. 3, p. 316:
"The distinguishing feature of Grisi's style as a dancer was a natural spontaneity that the public found irresistible... Her dancing always seemed effortless, but this concealed a very strong technique. Contemporary reviews make it clear that her pointe work was quite exceptionally developed for her time, and she was equal to such hazardous feats as the famous leap in La Péri. Her place in the history of ballet is also characterized by her lifelong friendship with the poet, scenarist, and critic Théophile Gautier, who conceived two of her best-known roles and who wrote several poems that owe their inspiration to her. Above all, she was the muse of the greatest choreographer of the Romantic ballet, Jules Perrot."
The composer
:
Pugni is said to have contributed music to over 300 ballets. "The reasons for [his] success can be found in the music's brio, its imaginative fancy and expressive quality, and in its subservience to the functional requirements of the choreography..." Andrea Lanza in Grove Music Online.
Jullien was a French composer, conductor, and music publisher. "Considered something of a child prodigy by his violinist-bandmaster father Antonio, Jullien served in the army before entering the Paris Conservatoire in 1833 or 1831. He left in 1836, preferring dance music over counterpoint. For the next three years, Jullien's lively entertainments of dance music at the Jardin Turc brought rapid popularity, rivalling Musard's, and three duels brought notoriety. He left Paris for England in 1838.
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