Louis Saguer
Louis Saguer was born as Ludwig Wolfgang (nicknamed "Wolf") Simoni on 26 March 1907 in Charlottenburg (Germany). His uncle was Renato Simoni, the playwright who co-authored the libretto for Puccini's Turandot. Wolf Simoni studied music at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin under Gino Tagliapietra (piano), Wolfgang Bülau and Wilhelm Klatte (composition) in the early 1920s. After some working years he completed his studies in Paris under Louis Aubert (orchestration) and Paul Hindemith and Curt Sachs around 1930.
Wolf Simoni first worked as a repetiteur and assistant choreographer at the Berlin State Opera and as assistant director at the Piscator Bühne. He also worked for the composers Hanns Eisler and Edmund Meisel (supporting him in the film music for "Panzerkreuzer Potemkin" and others). In the late 1920s Wolf Simoni got a more responsible work and became conductor and composer for the Stadttheater Saarbrücken. With the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany in 1933 Wolf Simoni emigrated to France and settled in Paris. He worked as an accompanist, became choral master of the Chorale Populaire de Paris in 1935 and was assistant to conductor Hermann Scherchen. After the Fall of France in 1940 Wolf Simoni was arrested by the German forces and detained. He could flee the same year and submerged in the south of France with the help of the Resistance. In 1943 Wolf Simoni used a counterfeited ID of a person named "Louis Saguer" which became his new name in general. After World War II he stayed in France and was naturalised with his alias. He continued to work as a musician and composer and won the Grand Prix de Monaco in 1964 for his opera "Mariana Pineda". But in general his compositions were less successful and Louis Saguer died impecuniously on 1 March 1991 in Paris (France).
In my possession are two autograph manuscripts of songs by Louis Saguer. Both works are scored for contralto and piano and set poems by Langston Hughes to music. The songs do not use the original English text, but translations into French by Jean Wahl (published in the French magazine "Fontaine" in June 1943 in a special issue dedicated to US-American writers and poets). The songs are:
- Pour une fille noire (original poem titled "Way down south in Dixie")
- Nostalgy blues (original poem titled "Homesick blues")
Both manuscripts have a registration stamp of the SACEM dated 27 July 1948. It is very likely that the songs were composed shortly before.
