From: AJN Date: Feb 15, 2014 4:01:24 PM Subject: FW: petition for instrument museum in Nice To: [email protected]
This petition deserves our attention. Some of you have expressed interest in some of the instruments in this magnificent collection. The Musee du Palais Lescares holds the second largest historical musical instrument collection in France, described in the petition, below. Arthur J. Ness, Boston [1][email protected] ----------Original Message---------- From: American Musical Instrument Society Listserv Sent: Monday, February 10, 2014 7:43 AM To: [2][email protected] Subject: petition for instrument museum in Nice The following is a translation of the text of the petition linked below. Please sign and forward as widely as possible. Help ! Nice, musAA(c)e du Palais Lascaris : a collection of historical instruments adrift ? To all lovers of old instruments, musicologitsts and organologists: if you support our cause, we ask you to please sign this petition and to circulate it as widely as possible: <[3]http://www.petitionpublique.fr/?pi=P2014N45944> [4]http://www.petitionpublique.fr/?pi=P2014N45944 You may also write to Mr Le DAA(c)putAA(c) Christian Estrosi /Maire de Nice / 5 rue de l'hAA'tel de Ville / 06364 Nice cedex 4, indicating your name, your title and/or affiliation, and your address, or send an email using the following link: [5]http://contact.nice.fr/index.php?mode=ecrireaumaire Thanks to all ! Many scholars and musicians know the collection of historical instruments at the Palais Lascaris in Nice, the result of a bequest in 1904 of all of the musical collections (instruments, books on music, first editions, scores, autographs) of Antoine Gautier, founder of a string quartet that had celebrated their sixtieth anniversary and whom all of musical Europe knew, and whose salon they visited. The collection has suffered numerous tribulations and moves: MusAA(c)e Jules ChAA(c)ret in 1904, MusAA(c)e MassAA(c)na in 1922, Conservatoire de Musique in 1955, the store rooms of the abbaye de Roseland, return to the musAA(c)e MassAA(c)na, back in storage... Finally, the city council decided in 1996 to install it definitively in the baroque setting of the Palais Lascaris. At that point, under the enlightened leadership of its curator, the administration hired for the museum a reputed musicologist and organologist. Mr Robert Adelson. Very rapidly, the quality of the scholarly work, the richness of the exhibitions, the musical programmes, the access given to many scholars, developed a larger and larger audience, enriching the collections thanks to remarkable donations, even attracting the long-term loans of precious collections: the Ad Libitum collection (keyboard instruments, including an Erard grand piano from 1790 in playable state) and the Axa archives (owners of the Erard-Pleyel-Gaveau collections: paintings, documents, ledgerbooks, instruments, as well as an immense archive of unpublished correspondence, from Busoni, Cherubini, FaurAA(c), Gounod, Liszt, Massenet, Mendelssohn, Moscheles, Paderewski, Prokofiev, Ravel, Saint-SaAA<<ns, Thalberg, Widor...). The inaugural exhibition of the Axa archives coincided with the creation of the Gautier galleries, the museum display cases presenting the most important instruments of the Gautier collection. In this way, the Palais Lascaris's own collections were valorised, which assured from that moment on the international reputation of the museum of musical instruments in Nice. Finally, convinced by the quality of the scholarship and the rich programmes offered in the museum, Mr Gabriel de Broglie, chancellor of the Institut de France, put on long-term loan at the palais Lascaris the Fonds Tissier-Grandpierre, an important collection of historical instruments, especially famous for its precious series of harps. Since the summer of 2012, the citizens of Nice witnessed with astonishment the reversal of all the developments that had taken place throughout the previous years and that had been so remarkably conducted: the side-lining of the Organologist-Curator, the cancellation of the Axa and Ad Libitum long-term loans, the limiting or refusal of access to international scholars, the apparent halt to the scholarly programmes, research and publications, acquisitions and restorations, the increasingly scarce concerts on playable instruments from the collection. Today one has reason to worry that the palais Lascaris and its instruments could be left to fill more decorative rather than organological functions. We underline that, since the exhibition of the Gautier collection at the musAA(c)e MassAA(c)na (1935), all of the exhibitions of instruments have attracted the niAAS:ois public in large numbers (the harpsichord collection of Michael Thomas, under the patronage of the Rt Hon. Edward Heath 1977-this exhibition enjoyed the highest attendance of all of the museums in Nice, after the musAA(c)e Chagall-, mechanized musicians of Jacques Damiot, 1978, exhibitions by the palais Lascaris : Erard and the invention of the modern harp, 2011 ; the Living Keyboard, 2012, just to name a few ...). Will the citizens of Nice and their friends abroad be thus deprived of their common riches? Will the city not even consult them about these decisions? Will the Institut de France's long-term loan of the Tissier-Grandpierre collection meet the same fate as its predecessors? Or will the collections built up from the Gautier bequest once again be condemned, like the Flying Dutchman's ghost ship, to float adrift at sea for eternity? Faced with the perilous situation of the historical musical instrument collections at the palais Lascaris, We the undersigned express to those responsible at the city government in Nice our deepest concerns, and request that they will hear our call with the most careful attention. To sign the petition: [6]http://www.petitionpublique.fr/?pi=P2014N45944 _____ The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in Scotland, with registration number SC005336. ************************************************** AMIS-L is a free Listserv email list service provided by the American Musical Instrument Society (AMIS), the National Music Museum and the University of South Dakota as a service to members of AMIS. Any questions regarding your list membership or technical problems should be addressed to the moderator at: [7][email protected] <[8]mailto:[email protected]> . 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It is helpful to include your name and e-mail address at the bottom of your post. ____________ Info and posting guidelines: [10]www.ams-net.org/ams-l/ Unsubscribe or review subscription options: [11]http://listserv.unl.edu References 1. mailto:[email protected] 2. mailto:[email protected] 3. http://www.petitionpublique.fr/?pi=P2014N45944 4. http://www.petitionpublique.fr/?pi=P2014N45944 5. http://contact.nice.fr/index.php?mode=ecrireaumaire 6. http://www.petitionpublique.fr/?pi=P2014N45944 7. mailto:[email protected] 8. mailto:[email protected] 9. http://listserv.usd.edu/archives/AMIS-L-LIST.html 10. http://www.ams-net.org/ams-l/ 11. http://listserv.unl.edu/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
