Carlo Sica - Album des Salons - 1847-1860

Two splendid Parisian music albums from the flowering of Romantic salon music – 13 rare piano pieces in decorative contemporary bindings, including Carlo Sica’s complete eight-part “Album des salons” and several especially appealing lithographic title pages.

1. Sica, Carlo [d.i. Carlo Francesco Luigi d’Apice]. Album des salons. Paris, Chabal, Boulevard Montmartre 11, o. J. [after 1846]. Series of 8 separately issued piano pieces, each with its own lithographed title page. Bound together in a decorative green original half-leather binding with rich floral gold tooling. FOLIO.

2. Sammelalbum französischer Salonmusik. Paris and Lyon, various publishers, mid-19th century. With 5 separately issued piano works: M. Schubert, Petite Fantaisie Mignonne for Piano on La Somnambule; Fr. Löwenstein, Comtesse-Polka; Adolphe Lecarpentier, Agnèse. Fantaisie facile for the Piano, op. 151; same author, Les Reines de Venise. Petite Fantaisie brillante for Piano on motifs by Luigi Bordèse; Alphonse Leduc, Rose de Mai. Valse Mignonne for the Piano. Contemporary dark blue half-leather binding with rich ornamental gold tooling and the title “Album.” Several elaborately designed lithographic title pages, including figural depictions in Löwenstein’s Comtesse-Polka and Leduc’s Rose de Mai. FOLIO
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The two albums lead directly into the Parisian music culture of the mid-19th century: Polka, Mazurka, Redowa, Waltz, and Tarantella belonged to the musical world of salons and society gatherings. Of particular interest is Carlo Sica, who was actually Carlo d’Apice and who appeared in Paris as a pianist and composer from 1839. Contemporary reports name him as a sought-after pianist of Parisian society; his compositions appeared there with Pacini and Chabal. He later emigrated to Australia.

Sica’s Album des salons is far more than a random collection of individual music prints: the eight pieces were explicitly issued by the publisher as a cohesive set. A comparison copy of this sequence even lies within the composer’s surviving personal music album from the d’Apice family collection. The individual works are dedicated to various ladies from Sica’s social milieu, thereby conveying a beautiful picture of private musical culture of the Second Empire.
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The decorative bindings are rubbed and the edges and corners partly more worn or with minor defects. The sheets are sometimes foxed; in particular in the Sica album there are some clear older water stains, though without substantial impairment of legibility. Occasional old ownership stamps. Overall, despite the age-related signs, an exceedingly attractive and unusual ensemble of Romantic salon music with high decorative appeal.