17 May 2010

This is the week that...

... Nina Grieg celebrates the Russian Revolution (17th May 1917)




















(Ref: AB/861)

Nina Grieg was a Danish-Norwegian lyric soprano. She was the first cousin of composer Edvard Grieg and they married 11th June, 1867 in Copenhagen. The couple often performed concerts together in Europe and Edvard considered her the best performer of his songs. After the death of her husband in 1907, she moved to Denmark where she died on 9 December 1935.

Anna Brodsky was the wife of the Russian violinist Adolph Brodsky . The daughter of a Russian nobleman who owned estates in southern Russia, Anna married at Sevastopol in 1882, and accompanied her husband to the United States in 1891, eventually settling with him in Manchester, England.

In this letter, dated 17th May 1917, Nina rejoices with Anna at the Russian Revolution and wishes that Edvard were alive to see it, but is glad he does not see all the suffering. She looks forward to peace and a happy life in art and science, and declares “music must be international.”

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