Typed letter signed `George Gershwin` to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger - photo 1
Typed letter signed `George Gershwin` to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger - photo 2
Typed letter signed `George Gershwin` to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger - photo 3

Typed letter signed `George Gershwin` to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger

Lot 145
28.09.2023 13:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 1 260
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1016363
Lot 145 | Typed letter signed 'George Gershwin' to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger
Estimate value
£ 1 500 – 2 500
Typed letter signed 'George Gershwin' to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger

George Gershwin

GERSHWIN, George (1898-1937). Typed letter signed 'George Gershwin' to his music teacher Joseph Schillinger, 132 East 72nd Street, New York, 16 May 1935.



Gershwin writes to his music teacher, describing his progress with Porgy and Bess, only four months before the opera premiered in Boston: ‘I have finished the music for the opera and also the orchestrations of the first act and am now working on the second act scoring, but it goes slowly.’ Gershwin tentatively proposes continuing music lessons with Schillinger in New York during the summer of 1935 and expresses his desire to ‘clear up the amount outstanding’ on an organ loan.



From 1932 to c.1936, Gershwin studied composition and orchestration with Joseph Schillinger, a Russian-born composer, music theorist and composition teacher who worked with many of the most popular musicians of the day, including Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller and Charles Previn. There is some debate over the level of Schillinger’s influence and his involvement with Gershwin’s compositions during this period, particularly Porgy and Bess. According to Charles Schwartz’ 1979 biography of Gershwin, ‘Even though the completed scores of all of Gershwin’s orchestrated pieces written after the Rhapsody… are in his hand, there is a good chance that they were orchestrated with some help… The orchestrated score for Porgy and Bess is a case in point. All three acts of the opera, beautifully written and well orchestrated, are in Gershwin’s hand. Solely on the basis of the finished product, one would assume that he had not been helped in any way. Yet there is evidence that he was aided in his orchestration by Joseph Schillinger. According to Vernon Duke, he and George, as well as Ira… all shared a house on Fire Island during the summer of 1935. All summer long, Duke claims, Gershwin saw Schillinger three times weekly for help in orchestrating the opera.’ Schwartz goes on to quote the present letter, noting that ‘though one might easily infer from this letter that Gershwin sought Schillinger’s help… there is nothing in the finished score that would substantiate that inference.’ After the posthumous success of Porgy and Bess, ‘Schillinger himself… alleged that he supervised the entire writing of the opera… in defence of his brother, and in answer to such a claim, Ira stated in 1944 that “lessons like these… unquestionably broaden musical horizons, but they don’t inspire an opera like Porgy.’ Schwartz 112-13.



One page on Gershwin’s personalised stationery, 273 x 212 mm. Provenance: The Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang, their sale at Sotheby’s, New York, 14 October 2020, lot 85. Illustrated: Schwartz, Gershwin, his life and music, 124.



[With:] a concert programme for a performance by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra 'presenting George Gershwin' at the Civic Auditorium, Seattle, on 15 December 1936, signed in blue ink by Gershwin, one page, 279 x 152 mm.

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