SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri Dmitriyevich (1906-1975)

Lot 103
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 2 394
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 870796
Lot 103 | SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri Dmitriyevich (1906-1975)
Estimate value
£ 2 000 – 3 000
SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri Dmitriyevich (1906-1975)

Autograph letter signed ('D. Shostakovich') to Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky, St Petersburg, 28 December 1923.

In Russian. Two pages, 235 x 153mm. Envelope.



A mock-heroic letter on death and the afterlife. The 17-year-old composer opens with the motto 'A voice like a hair in June, thin and unclean', and goes on: 'I have a most humble request for you, if you snuff it or I snuff it. In the first place, be so kind and pay me a visit in the tenth dream after your snuffing ... and communicate the following points: / a) How did you feel at the moment of your snuffing? / b) What did you do next? c) Is there a Last Judgement? ... e) If you meet Steinberg, Lyapunov and Verdi, inform me of their new compositions and their health / g) If you do not visit me, then I must assume that you are rotten and only a horrible smell remains of you'.



Valerian Bogdanov-Berezovsky (1903-1971) was a composer and musicologist, a close friend and fellow-student of Shostakovich at the Petrograd Conservatory. The composers Maximilian Osseyevich Steinberg (1883-1946) and Sergei Mikhailovich Lyapunov (1859-1924) were both professors at the Conservatory, and still alive at this point, although Lyapunov died in the following year.





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