French writer who won the 1916 Nobel Prize for literature. ALS in French, six pages on two sets of adjoining sheets, 5.5 x 8.75, Schloss-Hotel Schonegg letterhead, September 8, 1902. Letter to composer Vincent d’Indy. In part (translated): “At present our winter program includes courses by Aubry, Th. Reinach, Expert (I'm counting on the quantity of new musical documents he will bring), lectures by Malherbe, Lichtenberger, Hendard…I will also give some lectures…the program isn't definite… we defer to you and can make room for you. It's not merely a very great honor but also a great service which you can do for us and for our undertaking: there are plenty of historians; but an artist such as you, who is both example and model for the scholarly and passionate study of the past, that's more than rare, - almost unique -this can exert a truly fertile influence on history and music…Aside from Aubry, Expert and a handful of others, you will be surrounded, alas!, by ignoramuses. Most scholarly historians don't know very much and they know nothing about music. Everything remains to be done. (But don't you think that's the way it is in all types of work? Folk wisdom has it that "There's nothing new under the sun." But it seems to me, on the contrary, that everything is new. One either ignores of forgets that…As subjects…I recommend Beethoven or Gluck...The creative artist alone understands the totality of the works he is creating.” In very good condition, with intersecting folds, scattered light soiling, pencil notation to first page, and a few wrinkles. After time at the Sorbonne, Rolland was a professor of art history at the École Normale in Paris. RRAuction COA.
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