[Roger DÉSORMIÈRE (1898-1963)]. Colette STEINLEN (1888-1963) daughter of the designer, wife (1942) of Désormière. Approx. 200 L.A.S. (mostly "Colette"), 1931-1951, to Roger Désormière; approx. 450 pages in various formats (some letters incomplete). 5 L.A. from Roger Désormière to Colette Steinlen (Lyon 1929 and n.d.). Important love correspondence between Colette Steinlen and Roger Désormière, her second husband (divorced from D.-E. Inghelbrecht, she had married Désormière in 1942, after more than twenty years of cohabitation), maintained during the latter's many business trips, his military service and his frequent European travels. She called him "cher Coq", "vieux Coq", "très cher z'oiseau", "cher petit Déso". This abundant correspondence offers a wealth of information on musical life. We can only quote a few letters here. November 13, 1931. "I'm thinking about your rehearsals for your concert this evening. I hope you will be pleased. Since you won't be here for Igor [Markevitch]'s concert, perhaps you would do well to stay in Rome one or two more days for your pleasure. [...] Milhaud phoned me and I promised to come and have dinner with them tomorrow. It seems that Sauguet is not well disposed these days. Trouble with his entertainment equipment. [Paul] Collaer wrote to him that he couldn't undertake to have it copied, that he was going to send the score back to him"... August 14, 1932. "Darius [Milhaud] is feeling much better today. Above all, he had a violent attack of facial neuralgia, which has now dissipated. The story about the burn was nothing, but it provoked the neuralgia. I'm going to pay him a little visit later"... - Petit Port September 15 [1932]. "Igor [Markevitch] is working, finishing ballet No. I. In the end, the music he wrote for Massine's little ballet [Rebus] was not used despite the recording. Everyone found it horrible, and the ballet and music were removed. We'll probably make a record of it. It's a great vote of confidence on Igor's part to have told me the whole truth, and we have to keep it a secret, because he doesn't present things quite like that to his "little comrades", so that they don't have to rejoice at a failure and proclaim it everywhere. [...] What emerges is that Massine and Igor worked without the slightest concern for the ensemble into which their ballet was to fit, and that it really didn't fit. Igor recognizes this"... - Petit Port September 22, 1932. "Another time, when you part from me to run the world, you'll make me a rough plan of your trip, and I'll dot the area with little poste restante letters, so you can pick them up at your leisure if you feel like it. I also love you very much, of course our life would be otherwise pleasant if it weren't for this terrible reason I have of carrying you on my system (to put it crudely), but I still hope you'll end up arranging a little life for yourselves on this side, although it's hardly easy, too attached to each other to be able to really enjoy the freedom we allow ourselves. As for me, I'm almost an old lady and I've given up everything. [...] I have my ugly face, which I see every morning in the mirror, and which is a good brake on the outbursts of the imagination"... January 16, 1934. "Auric, passing through Paris, phoned me, I told him about your setbacks and we lamented together. In the evening I dropped in on Darius before going to dinner with the family (Inghel, Germaine, Biche, Rickel) [...] it was a real reunion around Darius seated in his armchair in the living room buried under the plaids. Auric, who had more recent news than your letter had given me"... - January 19, 1934. On Inghelbrecht, her first husband: "Poor Inghel is in an appalling state of nervousness [...] I wonder how his orchestra was able to work with such a gesticulating and agitated conductor, although Pelléas was very beautiful, but Inghel was neither to be listened to nor looked at, it was frightfully distressing"... - January 22, 1934. "Inghel's concert was quite good, auditions of this quality must serve him enormously and it gave me double pleasure, for the music I heard and for him. He has been asked to form an orchestra, but his situation is not yet defined [...]. We had fragments of La Belle Hélène, Les Huguenots, L'Arlésienne and, for the concert genre, Le Chasseur maudit. Féart sang well, Cathla less well than in rehearsals; we were in a proscenium and my heart sank to see how his music trembled in his hands"... Cusset June 17-18 [1940]. "I interviewed a few of them. In general, they were positive that all the hospitals in Paris had been evacuated, but the