[New York?]: Privately printed, [circa 1938].
Price: $9,500.00
Hardcover. Facsimile of the handwritten score. Folio. Full leather, ruled with a Greek key design, and lettered in gilt. Blue silk endpapers, all edges gilt. Fine. Laid in is a Typed Letter Signed dated 12 April 1938, from Abraham Ellis to Gershwin's mother, Rose (who was the unmarried composer's heir). Ellis announces in the letter that he has just purchased the Manhattan Opera House (which became the Manhattan Center), and that with Rose's permission, he would like to rename the rebuilt auditorium the Gershwin Room. This volume was apparently a private photographic reproduction of the score that was produced for family and friends, before the manuscript was eventually donated to the Library of Congress. Gershwin's mother's copy, with the letter dated less than a year after the composer's untimely death. A classic of 20th Century composition, and inspiration for the Vincente Minnelli film, scripted by Alan Jay Lerner around Gershwin's music and starring Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron, and Oscar Levant.
Item #99122
