Requiem by Akhmatova, Anna; Bruskin, Grisha (Illustrator); Hackel, Sergei (Translator); Tavener, Sir John (Composer) - 2000

[New York]: The Limited Editions Club, 2000. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Fine. Bruskin, Grisha. Number 143 of 300 copies, elephant folio size, [62] pp., signed by Sir John Tavener and Grisha Bruskin, with LEC Newsletter and CD. Anna Andreyevna Gorenko (1889-1996), known by her pen name Anna Akhmatova, was one of the most significant Russian poets of the twentieth-century. Her harrowing and embittered "Requiem" memorializes the deaths and sufferings of millions of victims of the KGB under Stalin's long and terrible reign; the theme of love in her poems became deeply embittered after her son Lev was sentenced to fifteen years in the Gulag Archipelago. "Requiem" was originally a string of short poems written between 1935 and 1943, in response to the poet's experiences during the siege of Leningrad, her evacuation, and her son's imprisonment, with the poems being rearranged for publication in 1957.

Sir John Tavener (1944-2003) is an English composer who set "Requiem" to music, insisting it to be "perhaps the greatest poem of the twentieth century". The performance of 1981 at London's Royal Albert Hall accompanies this publication in the form of a CD. Tavener was knighted in 2000 for his services to music, and was the recipient of an Ivor Novello Award; his work is devoted mainly to the Russian Orthodox Church, of which faith the author was also. Artist Grisha Bruskin (b. 1945) is a Russian painter, sculptor and printmaker who defected in 1988 after being censored in the Soviet Union for work that was considered too "existentialist". His two etchings depict common people as marble statues on pedestals, the common people in their various occupations, here a "strikingly moving set of individuals....being the icons of modern Russian symbology".

___DESCRIPTION: Black morocco spine and black linen covered boards, Cyrillic lettering in gilt to upper board on black morocco inlaid label, English title and author stamped in gilt to backstrip, fore- and tail-edges uncut, two etchings by the artist, with text both in English and Russian Cyrillic on facing pages; Baskerville type (adapted for Cyrillic by Harry Carter), Rives mould-made paper, elephant folio size (16.25" by 13.5"), [62] unnumbered pp., limited edition, this number 143 of 300 copies, signed by Sir John Tavener and Grisha Bruskin; "Requiem" was designed, composed, and printed by Dan Carr and Julia Ferrari at the Golgonooza Letter Foundry and Press. Housed in a black linen fall-down-back box (17.5" by 14.5"), black leather spine label with gilt lettering (in English), lined in black felt with a sleeve in the lining for the CD recording, with LEC Newsletter loosely laid in.

___CONDITION: A fine copy, the leather spine smooth and supple, the cloth boards clean and unrubbed, the binding tight with solid hinges, the interior clean and bright, and free of prior owner markings; clean, crisp, as new. The LEC Newsletter fine, clean and without wear; the box also fine, strong and sturdy, unfrayed, only a few spots of light dustiness.

___POSTAGE: Please note that this is an extremely large and heavy book, and therefore additional postage will apply. We are happy to ship at cost to both domestic and international customers, please inquire for details.

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