SAGAN FRANCOISE: (1935-2004) French playwright, novelist, screenwriter and lyricist. An ...

SAGAN FRANCOISE: (1935-2004) French playwright, novelist, screenwriter and lyricist. An illustrated autograph manuscript, unsigned, seven pages, 4to, n.p., n.d. (mid-1950s), in French. The working manuscript, with some revisions, is for the song La Valse, the lyrics demonstrating the beauty and simplicity of melancholic and timeless romances, ‘Il passait/ dans les yeux/ Quand tu valsais/ Quelque chose/ Quelque chose/ Que j’ignorais/ Un regret/ Un oubli/ Oui mais de qui/ Ah dis-moi/……Il passait/Sur ta bouche/ Quand tu valsais/ Quelque chose/ Quelque chose/ Que j’ignorais/ Un baiser/ La folie/ Oui mas de qui/ Ah dis-moi’, the chorus including the lines ‘Valse, valse, mon pauvre amour/ Passe, passe mon pauvre amour’. The manuscript comprises several successive versions of the song, each increasingly elaborate, and at the conclusion Sagan has translated a couple of lines into English, ‘….there was in your eyes when you were waltzing’. Perhaps as a part of Sagan’s creative process, whilst in search of inspiration, the manuscript is decorated with a number of sketches and doodles including, to the first page, a profile head and study of a man, somewhat reminiscent of Michel Magne (who composed the music and arrangements for La Valse) and, to the penultimate page, a series of six drawings of a lady’s head in profile, some realistic and others stylised. The final page features a more abstract drawing by Sagan, evocative of seaweed. The pages are stapled together at the upper left corner, where there is also a slight paperclip rust stain. VG

Francoise Sagan wrote the lyrics to a number of songs performed by Annabel Buffet and Juliette Greco in the mid to late 1950s, one of the most famous being La Valse which was recorded in 1956 to music composed by the French film and experimental music composer Michel Magne (1930-1984).