Klarinet Archive - Posting 000438.txt from 1997/10

From: Josias Associates <josassoc@-----.com>
Subj: Re: Big News! Anyone got $1,000,000?
Date: Sun, 12 Oct 1997 01:51:36 -0400

Dan,

Your mentioning of the sale of manuscripts of the Brahm's
clarinet sonatas brought to mind a story that continues to fascinate me.
I think that the list members and you, in particular, might appreciate
this story, which was related to me by a pianist friend who lives in
Santa Barbara, California.

On the death of his father-in-law -- possibly on the order of ten
years ago -- he received a package of what appeared to be old documents
from his mother-in-law, who reported that her husband's will specified
that his son-in-law was to receive the package. She had no idea of what
the package contained other than that it was given to her husband in
Austria in 1938 in gratitude for his medical services and help in escaping
the country.

On opening the wrapper, he was stupefied to find what appeared to
be an autographed manuscript of a late four-part choral composition by
Brahms. He took the apparent treasure to the nearby University of
California at Santa Barbara (where he was a professor) and musicologists
and document specialists verified the manuscript as being the genuine
article. A number of musical reference books had reported the
disappearance of the manuscript many years earlier, and the document was
believed until this recent discovery to be irretrievably lost.

The manuscript is on loan to UCSB, where it is stored in a vault
when it is not on display. Considering how priceless such a manuscript
must be, I can't imagine how it must feel to have such a thing drop in
one's lap from out of the blue.

Connie

Conrad Josias
La Canada, California