Personal Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Gershwin letters to be auctioned
7 November 2012, 10:26 | Updated: 8 November 2012, 09:33
Letters from composers including Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and Gershwin are to be auctioned in LA next month.
A series of personal correspondence from composers including Beethoven, Tchaikovsky and George Gershwin are to go under the hammer on December 18th in Los Angeles. They are being auction by Profiles In History alongside many other letters from pop musicians, including one from John Lennon to Eric Clapton.
The Beethoven letter is from the composer to his friend Tobias Haslinger and concerns the second performance of his 9th Symphony and the Missa Solemnis, said to be in a 'disgruntled tone'. It is expected to fetch something between $40-60,000.
The letter from Tchaikovsky gives final instructions about an upcoming performance of a new overture, and his worries: "From the beginning of the repeat of the 2nd theme up to the end, the difficulty of the music is perhaps beyond the limits of what is possible." It is expected to fetch $10-15,000.
George Gershwin's letter, estimated to be worth around $3-5,000, shows him comparing his work Rhapsody in Blue to An American in Paris: "To clear up the situation about which you write, this is the fact ––RHAPSODY IN BLUE was written in three weeks of actual work."
Find out more about the auction here.
