Letters from Gouvy to Dubois

The composers Théodore Gouvy (1819-1898) and Théodore Dubois (1837-1924) followed relatively different paths in life. Gouvy, born a year after Charles Gounod, spent most of his career on the fringe of the great French musical institutions, having been unable for reasons of nationality to enter the Paris Conservatoire. Dubois, two years older than Camille Saint-Saëns and a year older than Georges Bizet, led a brilliant academic career: Grand Prix de Rome (1861), professor at the Paris Conservatoire (1871), director of the same (1896-1905) and member of the Institut de France (1894). Nevertheless, the close relationship that grew up between the two musicians, as evidenced by the six letters reproduced below, comes as no surprise.