Signed Photograph with Autograph Musical Quotation of the Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67

Pristine signed photograph of the esteemed Soviet composer whose 15 symphonies and large body of chamber and instrumental works occupy a place of central importance in the 20th-century repertoire. An original photograph, signed and inscribed boldly in purple ink in the lower blank margin to U.M. Krasovsky [Russian; 1917-2006], dated 1947, and inscribed by the composer with a detailed three-measure autograph musical quotation marked "Allegro" from his Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. Light toning; inscription slightly smudged, otherwise overall fine. Affixed to a same-size mount, 4 x 5.75 inches (10 x 14.8 cm).

Shostakovich's Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67, is remarkable for a number of reasons. It was written in 1944, just after his Symphony No. 8, with which it shares its overall structure; it is a lamentation for both Shostakovich's close friend, musicologist Ivan Sollertinsky, and the victims of the Holocaust, the news of which horror did not reach the U.S.S.R. until the liberation of the camps began; and it is his first work to employ a "Jewish theme," a musical tribute that used the scales and rhythms of Jewish folk music as Shostakovich knew it. Shostakovich began composing the trio in December 1943 but had only completed sketches, which he was able to share with Sollertinsky before Sollertinsky's death in February 1944. Shostakovich performed the piano part in the premiere, on November 14, 1944, in Leningrad, with violinist Dmitri Tsyganov and cellist Sergei Shirinsky, both members of the Beethoven String Quartet. The present AMQS quotes the opening of the final Allegretto, where the Jewish figurations -- the Dorian mode with an augmented fourth and the iambic rhythms -- are used in a macabre dance that is contrasted against a stern march and five-beat climbs up and down the scale.  (16295)

---

Classical Music

Signed Photograph

• Sold