Story

The finding:

In May 2010, in an apartment in Montmartre, a little treasure was found. This treasure was different from any ordinary treasure made of silver, gold or precious stones. Appearing as an old wine case without the bottles inside, it was sealed with rusty nails so as to become one with the wooden box. Once opened, the inside revealed many surprises.

Sixteen complete musical scores were contained in two parcels. Eight other scores were scattered inside the box, folded into small bundles, so as to keep them separate, one from the other. Many of the papers, including those inside the two parcels, were in very poor condition. Despite this, all the music was still readable.



There were also some letters revealing dates and names concerning the material contained in the box.

Finally, there was a brown wax phonograph roll, with its cardboard case. Inside the case, as well as the roll, there was also a note that read: "Charles Louis Packson et Daniel Moreau - 1893".


The scores:

These are mainly reductions for mixed chamber quintet of famous works from the first half of 1800. The instrumentation, as shown by the scores, is as follows: clarinet, cornet, trombone, tuba and mandolin. Apparently normal reductions of famous music pieces, like La Traviata, La Carmen, some Chopin nocturnes and rearranged piano pieces, at a closer look, have some special features that suggest something original, like the half-value augmentation dot.


But this work contains strange spots, not only from a technical point of view compared to the period it was made. The decision to make an album that sounds as close as possible to the versions found in the manuscripts (listen to a sample), derives from the fact that these arrangements, although dating between 1880 and 1890, at a first reading, sounded much like the music of New Orleans of two decades later. This was the first strangeness. An anachronism to overcome, but how?


The letters:

There are many clues putting everything in a historical and geographical frame in the correspondence found and fortunately preserved in the "treasure box".
Two letters, in particular, containing correspondence between a certain Daniel Moreau, a French trombone player, and Viktor Erzin, a Russian composer and tuba player. The first, representing a chamber ensemble of four elements (clarinet, trumpet, trombone and mandolin), sent a letter to Erzin in 1890, to commission some arrangements for the quartet, and possible improvements for a quintet. In this letter, Moreau introduces to Erzin the members of the ensemble and the unique way two of them play: Jacques D'Annoy and Charles Louis Packson, trumpet and clarinet players respectively, both born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and just arrived in Paris.
The other letter, dated just three weeks later, is Erzin's reply (who later became a member of the ensemble), accepting the request and explaining that he would be in Paris the following month and would arrange a meeting with the ensemble to design the arrangements according to the characteristics of the musicians.


The phonographic roll:

This contains the recording of a conversation between Daniel Moreau, the trombonist, and Charles Louis Packson, the clarinetist. This conversation, according to what is written in the note stored with the roll, was recorded in 1893. The digitization of the roll, and subsequent restoration, allowed the content to be recovered at least partially, because the wax covering the roll had almost been completely flattened.
However, a full minute of conversation survives, during which one of the two parties, presumably Packson, says (translated from French):
- "We should use it to record a performance".
- Moreau replies: "I heard that music is not recorded".
- "Who says?", Packson asks
- "Who says? Those who tried to record Handel five years ago in London".

Currently, it's not known whether the Dix Moitié ever recorded their performances on a phonogram of any kind, but the presumption is that they didn't.