Hand-Drawn Musical Bars, Signed by Toscanini to Friend and Fellow Musician Samuel Chotzinoff
Autograph Musical Bars, Signed. "Happy Birthday"
1949.
Happy Birthday" 1949.
Full Description:
TOSCANINI, Arturo. Autograph Musical Bars, Signed . "Happy Birthday" [n.p.] July 4-1949.
Size: 5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inch; 129 x 210 mm note on Arturo Toscanini's monogrammed letterhead. "Happy birthday to Shotzi July 4- 1949" with eleven bars of music, hand-drawn in maroon ink, a version of "Happy Birthday" with notes and lyrics. Underneath, signed "AToscanini"
The "Shotzi" that this note is made out to is Samuel Chotzinoff, "the man who scored a musical coup by persuading Arturo Toscanini to conduct the National Broadcasting Company Symphony Orchestra series... Mr. Chotzinoff was a friend of many famous musicians and a confidante of Toscanini... Known throughout the music world as “Shotzi,” Mr. Chotzinoff was at his death music consultant to N.B.C. and producer of the N.B.C. operas on television, But he was far more. He was a music critic, a pianist, a novelist, a playwright, a raconteur, a wit, and an urbane and gentle man. Mr. Chotzinoff lived at 171 West 57th Street with his wife, the former Pauline Heifetz, sister of Jascha Heifetz, the violinist." (From his NY Times Obituary, 2/11/1964).
Arturo Toscanini, an Italian conductor is "considered one of the great virtuoso conductors of the first half of the 20th century. He came into prominence as a conductor in Italy and elsewhere and was appointed musical director of La Scala, Milan, in 1898, and of the Metropolitan Opera, New York City, in 1908. He conducted the New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra from 1928 to 1936 and appeared with orchestras all over the world, except those of Italy and Germany during the Fascist regimes. From 1937 to 1954 he directed the NBC Symphony, an orchestra sponsored by the U.S. radio network." (Britannica)
The musical manuscript is tipped on on front free endpaper to a large oblong folio book:
DONIZETTI, Gaetano [composer]. CAMMARANO, Salvatore [libretto]. Lucia di Lammermoor, dramma tragico. Milan: E. Bestetti, 1941.
Autograph musical manuscript facsimile full score of this tragic opera. Limited edition of 300 numbered copies, this being number 313 "Extra" and with bookplate of Istituto di Alta Cultura pasted to colophon. Large oblong folio (11 3/4 x 15 7/8 inches; 298 x 400 mm).
Quarter red morocco over red cloth boards. Spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Front board tooled in blind and lettered in gilt. Top edge gilt, others uncut. Red and gilt coated endpapers. Some chipping to head and tail of spine. A bit of rubbing to board edges and joints. Cloth with some minor soiling. Preliminary pages a bit brittle at edges. Still a very good copy with an exciting autograph tipped in.
"Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico (tragic opera) in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvatore Cammarano wrote the Italian libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor. Very successful from creation, today it remains one of the leading bel canto operas." (Balletandopera dot com). This opera was a staple at The New York Met, during the seven years that Toscanini was its conductor.
HBS 68920.
$5,000.
Price: $5,000.00
Item #68920