Autograph Letter Signed in German, penned on the reverse of a 3.5 x 5.25 photo postcard of the German city Trahutten, no date [circa 1928]. A handwritten letter from both Alban Berg and his wife Helene Nahowski to Polish singer Marya Freund, with Alban adding the postscript, which reads (translated): “Dearest lady, would you be so kind as to forward the enclosed letter to Mme. Dubost. I mistakenly left her address in Vienna. Thank you very much.” Helene’s portion reads: “I hope you got the letter I wrote immediately after returning from Paris. How are you? What will you do this summer?” Although undated, it seems very likely that it was written in Spring of 1928, as Berg refers to Jeanne Dubost, the hostess of the salon where Berg's Lyric Suite had been premiered on March 22, 1928.  Dubost played an important role in establishing the reputation of the Lyric Suite: it was in her salon that the piece was performed for the first time, on March 22, 1928. The quartet was paired with several songs, with Berg himself at the piano. "It was wonderful in Paris, all the more terrible in Zurich," the composer wrote to Adorno in July 1928 (Theodor W. Adorno & Alban Berg: Correspondence 1925-1935, 2005, p. 122).

Marya [Maria] Freund was one of the great interpreters of 20th century French and German vocal music. She sang the first performances of Satie's Socrate, created part of Wood Dove in Schoenberg's Gurrelieder (1913), was speaker in first Fr. and Eng. perfs. of Pierrot Lunaire.