Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Autograph letter signed (‘H. Berlioz’) to [Amédée] Méreaux, Paris, 11 September [1855]
In French. 1½ pages, 209 x 132mm, bifolium. Provenance: Sotheby’s, 22 May 1987, lot 351.

Berlioz on L’enfance du Christ during its composition, discussing aspects of its arrangement. Berlioz instructs Méreaux to send his completed score to Berlioz’s copyist Rocquemont. Rocquemont will send him the manuscript of L’arrivée à Saïs, which requires arrangements for four hands for the ‘trio instrumental’, two hands for the flute part, and two hands for the harp. He wishes for this to be completed within a month, to coincide with his own work on the oratorio which he intends to begin in October.

L’enfance du Christ had its début performance the year that this letter was written, in 1855. Méreaux, a friend of Berlioz’s son, wrote the piano part for the oratorio.