Allen Ginsberg Autograph Letter Signed.

GINSBERG, Allen.

Item Number: 117347

Rare five-page autograph letter signed and entirely in the hand of beat icon Allen Ginsberg regarding his favorite musical compositions, from Bach to Bob Dylan. Five pages, the letter is is dated Feb, 10, 1971 and reads, “Dear Symphony School & Mr. Loratz & Students: My favorite musical compositions in ear/mind for several decades to present include, since you asked: A. Jannequin [sic] 0 des oiseaux (See Ezra Pound’s 1970 edition Cantos); Alphonse De Mudarra – David’s Lament ‘Triste Estaba El Rey David’; Bach – Unaccompanied poitras (Esp. #2) Mass in 5 minor & St. Matthew’s Passion; Beethoven – Grosse Fuge, Piano Sonata Op. III, Quartet op 116 (?) the one so strain’d, Missa Solemnis; Schubert – Op. posthumous piano sonatas & forget which number – A Major?; Brahms – Trio no. 1 – youthful tender lyric nostalgia; Prokofieff – Good old Alexander Nevsky (a favorite of poet Kerouac’s); Schoenberg’s Verklärte Nacht, or Stockhausen’s Kontakt. B. Prajnaparamita Sutra [Highest perfect Wisdom] – as chanted by Eino-Japanese presently in USA by S.F. Soto Zen Temple – by Rothi Suzuki & Disciples – Send someone to learn from them and you can perform it as a musical presentation of chanting which will turn everyone on!; Hare Krishna Mantra – Any ISKON version… on George Harrison’s record “My sweet Lord, or as done by Swami Shaktuvedanta’s groups around USA & London. It would be fine for improvisational choral & lead also joyying it up ecstatically – either spontaneous or arranged, but rehearsed so everyone knows the words… C. Scott Joplin – Maple Leaf Rag (& others), Opera: Treemonisha (can get score & recorded version from scholars Sam & Ann Charters c/o Gotham Bookmart); Ma Rainey’s version of Easy C.C. Rider blues “See, See what you done” etc., and other (forget names) – “I’m gonna buy me a pistol, just as long as I am tall, Lord Lord Lord Kill my man and Hit the Cannonball…. Bessie Smiths Version of – Empty Bed Blues, At the Christmas Ball, Gimmie a pegfoot & a Bottle of Beer, Young Woman’s Blues especially; Leadbelly’s versions of Boll Weevil, Black Girl, Irene; Ray Charles version of “Feel all Right” I got a Woman; Billie Holidays Version of Strange Fruit, Fine & Mellow, I for a right to Sing the Blues, Easy Living; Thelonius Monk: Mysterioso, Round about Midnight; Charles “Bird” Parker — Ornithology; Lester Young’s Lester Leaps In. I put these, listed above, as examples of Classical American Music which, if singers & musicians have proper training, they can approximate, imitate, or improvise in the spirit of original, for mind’s historical pleasure, & for cultural revolution’s acknowledgement as “classic U.S. art. Opera: Bertolt Brecht/Kurt Weill, MAHOGONY, Greatest of XX Century operas, perform as much of it as possible. Pop addenda: Some Version of Rolling Stones’ Let’s Spend the Night Together; Beatles: I Wanna Hold Your Hand (Early Beatles), I heard the News today Oh Boy (Pepper), I am a Walrus (Difficult composition), Strawberry Fields; J. Lennon – Give Peace a Chance; Geo. Harrison (as before) – My Sweet Lord (Extended & improvised with varying mantras chorused in background); Bob Dylan – Masters of War & Hard Rain, Tambourine Man, Sad Eyed Lady of Lowland, Gates of Eden. I ask your students to check out, hear, my own recorded versions, tuned to music, of Blake’s Songs of Innocence… recorded last year 1970 – to see if they are singable by others than myself – especially Nursed Song and The Grey Monk – That is all I can think of, fast – Love Allen Ginsberg.” Ginsberg has added a drawing of a daisy at the tail of the final ‘g’ in ‘Ginsberg’. In near fine condition. Accompanied by the original transmittal envelope printed in the defense of John Sinclair, John W. Forrest and Lawrence, three members of the White Panther Party charged in September of 1968 with the bombing of a CIA office in Ann Arbor. Ginsberg testified in the pretrial hearings in Detroit one month prior to sending the present letter. A scarce and intimate glimpse into the great Beat poet’s influences and eclectic musical taste.

Best known for his poem "Howl" in which he denounced the destructive forces of capitalism and conformity in the United States, American poet Allen Ginsberg strongly opposed militarism, economic materialism, and sexual repression while embodying the values of 1960s counterculture with his views on drugs, hostility to bureaucracy, and openness to Eastern religions. Ginsberg took part in decades of political protest against everything from the Vietnam War to the War on Drugs and, together with close friends and fellow writers William S. Burroughs, Neal Cassidy, and Jack Kerouac, established the "New Vision" of the Beat Generation.