[Bellini, Vincenzo. (1801-1835)] Rossini, Gioachino. (1792-1868) & Carafa, Michele. (1787-1872) & Cherubini, Luigi. (1760-1842) & Chollet, Jean-Baptiste. (1798-1892) & Halévy, Fromental. (1799-1862) & Habeneck, François-Antoine. (1781-1849) & Nourrit, Adolphe. (1802-1839) & Paer, Ferdinando. (1771-1839) & Panseron, Auguste Mathieu. (1796-1859) & Rubini, Giovanni Battista. (1794-1854) & Troupenas, Eugène-Théodore. (1798-1850)

Extraordinary and moving ALS signed by the members of the committee organizing the performance of a funeral mass for the Italian opera composer, addressed to the artists of the Opéra-Comique orchestra. The letter, written in French, asks for assistance in executing the performance, and is signed by some of the leading composers, singers, instrumentalists and and music publishers of the time, including Gioachino Rossini, Ferdinando Paer, Luigi Cherubini, Giovanni Battista Rubini, François Habeneck, Adolphe Nourrit, Auguste Mathieu Panseron, Michele Carafa, Eugène-Théodore Troupenas, Fromental Halévy, Jean-Baptiste Chollet, and two others ("Robert," "Severini"). 4to. 1 p. Marginal discoloration from prior matting, short closed tears to edges including one repaired with linen, mounting remnants to upper left, overall in fine condition. Together with a cabinet card portrait of Bellini. An important document in the history of opera. 

Translated in full: "Gentlemen The Artists of the Orchestra of the Opera Comique / The author of Pirata and I Puritani has just been taken away from the arts far from his family and his country; to honor his memory belongs to the country in which his last accents were consecrated. /  We here request your combined talents for a Mass with music which will be celebrated the Friday, October 2 at the Chapelle de l'Hotel des Invalides, we hope that you will respond to our appeal and will prove that the artists of all countries are but members of one single family."

"In the spring of 1835, the poet Heinrich Heine met the composer Vincenzo Bellini at the fashionable salon of the Princess Belgiojoso in Paris.  The two men did not, it would seem, hit it off.  Heine, a voluntary exile from Germany since 1831, could be crabby.  Bellini was the darling of the French capital, where his opera, I Puritani, had caused a sensation at its first performance at the Thétre Italien the previous January.  'You are a genius, Bellini," Heine remarked maliciously, 'but you will pay for your great gift with a premature death.  All the great geniuses die young, like Raphael and like Mozart.'  His comment was subsequently deemed prophetic.  Bellini died from dysentery a few months later, on September 25, at a friend's villa on the outskirts of Paris.  He was 33, and his early end ensured that a veritable industry sprang up to effect his canonisation among the list of mythic, melancholy, doomed Romantics who perished before their time." (The Guardian)

Bellini was honored with great sympathy at a state funeral in the Invalides Cathedral and the funeral was "attended by the most noted musicians and artists in Paris" (Willier 7). Giulia Grisi, who had sung in the triumphant “I Puritani” only 8 months earlier, sang the Lacrimosa to the tune of “Credeasi misera” from “I Puritani” and 350 choristers sang pieces by Bellini.  One of the myths surrounding him was that Chopin had expressed a wish to be buried near him; and indeed, it may not be a coincidence that Chopin, who loved opera himself, and had met Bellini in 1830, was laid to rest close by (see Willier 197) where Bellini was originally buried in Père LaChaise cemetery, Paris.  While his beautiful headstone designed by Carlo Giovanni Battista Marochetti (1805-1867) there remains, Bellini himself is no longer buried in Paris, his remains having been removed to Catania Cathedral in 1876 (see Willier 8). Reference: Willier, Stephen Ace. Vincenzo Bellini: A Guide to Research. London: Routledge, 2002.