Description
H. S. Publishing [Published Date: 2002]. Soft cover, 208 pp. No other printings listed.
Rare, out-of-print & unusual books · Since 1997
114
Turn the pages with the arrows, keyboard, or a swipe.
Catalog notes
Condition & notes
In very good condition. Glossy pictorial paper covers have light bumping to edges and light overall scuffing. Binding tight. Pages clean and unmarked. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. Some black and white photo reproductions. Virginia Waring (aka Virginia Morley) was part of one-half of a famous two-piano team, along with her then husband, Livingston Gearhart (1916-1996). The two Americans studied in Paris. They met in 1937 while students of Nadia Boulanger and Robert Casadesus and they gave their debut performance in February 1939. They then embarked on a mini-tour of Europe before the outbreak of War forced them to return to America. They married in 1940 and played at supper clubs, broadcast on Fred Waring's show on NBC (initially wary of the idea, but the publicity was huge). Trans-continental American tours and command performances followed, as did a raft of recordings but after their divorce in 1953 the musical partnership also dissolved. This book focuses on Virginia's life as a young musician in Paris, through series of letters written to her mother and wonderfully captures life in Paris just before the outbreak of World War II. [From the back cover] In 1937, Fleischmann Yeast heiress, Mrs. Cristian Holmes was listening to a radio concert in her New York apartment of a young female pianist that a friend told her about. Impressed with what she heard, steamship fare and tuition fees were sent for her to study at the renowned music school, Fontainebleau. Letters from Fontainebleau are a rare and historical excerpts of letters written of a young woman's dream of becoming a concert pianist and her travels from a small town in post-depression California to a life of dreams and endless possibilities in pre-World War II, Paris.