Typed Letter Signed about Noel Coward

A brief typed letter signed from the great composer and lyricist to Albert "Doc" Sirmay, head of the music publisher Chappell and a close collaborator with Porter, thanking him for sending clippings and mentioning that he has sent a telegram to Noel Coward "for his opening" (of the 1961 musical Sail Away.) Dated September 30, 1961. 1 p. A few small stains, else fine. 

Composer, arranger and editor Albert "Doc" Sirmay was the music director of the leading music publishing firm Chappell. According to Mark Eden Horowitz, Sirmay can be considered a collaborator with Porter: he "worked closely with [Chappell's] roster of composer, including Kern, Gershwin, and especially Porter. Many of the published piano-vocal scores of standards of the mid-1920s to the mid-1960s owe their elegance, clarity, and playability to Sirmay. He could convert a lead sheet to a richly accompanied song; he could wed melodies to accompaniment figures to make the totality of a song playable on the piano; he was a master of chord voicings. Many of the Porter music manuscripts in both the Library and Yale collections are in Sirmay's clear and flowing hand." ("Cole Porter's Papers," in A Cole Porter Companion, p. 310.) (14459)

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