Amaryllis: A Song History

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The parlor piece known as “Amaryllis” or “Air du Roi Louis XIII” is a piano setting by Henri Ghys (1839–1908), a French pianist who was Maurice Ravel’s first teacher.[1][2] IMSLP lists the air as the second of his 2 Morceaux de salon, Op. 10, and gives that set’s first publication as 1871 or earlier, so the exact first edition remains uncertain in the sources consulted here.[3] In the United States it was on the program of New York’s Central Park Garden concerts in September 1871, and Oliver Ditson of Boston published an edition in 1872.[4][2] Ghys also made a version for piano four hands, and his manuscript of it, dated 30 August 1882, is dedicated to the seven-year-old Ravel.[2]

Engraved oval portrait of King Louis XIII with long curled hair, a moustache and a wide lace ruff, in an ornamental frame

Jacob Louys, Portrait of Louis XIII, King of France, engraving and etching, ca. 1650. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). The king whose name the tune carries, though the credit to him is now considered mistaken.

The royal title is the shakiest part of the story. Catalog records at UC Berkeley and the New York Public Library both call the credit to Louis XIII mistaken and assign the melody instead to Balthazar de Beaujoyeulx.[5][6] Beaujoyeulx staged and choreographed the Balet comique de la Royne, a court spectacle performed in Paris in 1581 and printed there in 1582, whose music IMSLP credits to Beaulieu and Jacques Salmon.[7] IMSLP suggests, without treating it as settled, that the tune may have begun as a number from that ballet called “Le son de la clochete,” written or arranged by Beaujoyeulx or one of his collaborators; even its two pages disagree on Beaulieu’s first name, giving Girard on one and Lambert on the other.[2][7]

Editions multiplied in the later nineteenth century: IMSLP lists arrangements by Henry Maylath (New York, 1873), Frédéric Brisson (New York, 1899) and Victor Felix (Leipzig, undated), along with a Berlin printing of Ghys’s own setting.[2] The tune also reached early records: Arthur Pryor’s Band cut it as “Gavotte Louis XIII” for Victor in December 1903.[8] Victor and Columbia returned to it between 1906 and 1941, with versions on bells, celeste, harp and salon orchestra.[9][10][11][12]

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Sources

  1. IMSLP: "Category:Ghys, Henri".
  2. IMSLP: "Air Louis XIII (Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de)".
  3. IMSLP: "2 Morceaux de salon, Op.10 (Ghys, Henri)".
  4. Music in Gotham: "Morceaux de salon, piano, op. 10. No. 2".
  5. UC Berkeley Library Digital Collections: "Amaryllis : air composè par Louis XIII / arr. par Henry Ghys".
  6. New York Public Library Research Catalog: "Air Louis XIII. Improvisation. [Von] Victor Felix".
  7. IMSLP: "Balet comique de la Royne (Beaujoyeulx, Balthazar de)".
  8. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix A-844. Gavotte Louis XIII / Arthur Pryor's Band".
  9. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor 4831 (Black label (popular) 10-in. single-faced)".
  10. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Columbia matrix 47011. Amaryllis / Charles Adams Prince".
  11. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix B-29197. Amaryllis / Alberto Salvi".
  12. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor 27557 (Black label (popular) 10-in. double-faced). Gems of melody (Album P-76)".