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Price: $1800.00 |
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MINT CONDITION |
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Autographed large octavo 2 page letter, written on a spiral bound page to pianist Pavel Alekseyevich Serebryakov, 22 July, 1975, 18 days before his death. 22 VII 1975 Dear Pavel Alexeyevich! Thank you for your letter. Take my late, but warm gratitude for your good words to my article in “Kommunist”. I am writing you so late, because I worked a lot and I am weak. Now I am in a hospital about my heart and lung. Possibly I’ll spend a month here. Send you and your family very best wishes. Say Hi to Philip Kizilovich. D. Shostakovich
Serebryakov was a Professor of pianoforte and the rector of the Leningrad Conservatory (at the time) who famously had been the one to fire Shostakovich. Later in 1966 when Shostakovich was restored as an honorary Professor there, there friendship had be reconstituted. Shostakovich had lost most of the function of his left hand in 1969, which continued to worsen. In 1973, he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, yet kept his busy travel schedule and also consulted foreign doctors seeking a cure. By 1975, he has noticeably aged and yet still continued to compose. In the early part of July, he completed his viola sonata, op. 147. He must have felt better on the 22nd of July, because in addition to this letter, he also wrote to Fyodor Druzhinin, the dedicatee of his viola sonata telling him the score would be printed in August. According to Druzhinin he left his phone number in the hospital in the letter, however, he was too weak to answer calls after the letter was written. There are only a few documented Shostakovich letters after 22 September. This was certainly one of the last he wrote. Shostakovich died 18 days later on the 9th of August, it took the Communists 3 days to print his obituary, as the approval was made by Leonid Brezhnev himself. |
DIMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH - COMPOSER |
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Phone: 212-860-5541 * Fax: 917-677-8247
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