OSSIP GABRILOWITSCH (1878 – 1936), who used the German spelling of his name (in Russian: Осип Сoломонович Габрилович) was best known in his day as a concert pianist and conductor as well as a composer and, in the last decades of his life, the son-in-law of Mark Twain (having married Clara Clemens in 1910).
Diana’s essay “I Remember Detroit” makes mention of how Clara Clemens-Gabrilowitsch, would buy Tav and her ice cream cones when they were toddlers at the hot summer (outdoor) symphony concerts
In 1938 Clara wrote a book, My Husband Gabrilowitsch, a copy of which was among the books and papers on bassoon and other subjects that eventually were given to Beth. In one of the last chapters (perhaps the final one … many years have passed since i read it) Clara tells how Ossip, knowing that he had only a short time left to live, decided one day to play the piano for what he figured was the last time. Upon finishing a Schubert Impromptu, he turned to Clara as he closed the lid over the keyboard and opined as to how, “Years from now, when everyone will have forgotten Ravel’s Bolero, they will still be listening to and enjoying these pieces by Schubert.”
Another item comes to mind: up until February of 2016, Diana remembered Ossip and Clara’s daughter, Nina Gabrilowitsch who was 12 years older than Diana. A few months before Diana’s father died (in 1966) he clipped from The Washington Post an obituary on Nina who committed suicide in Los Angeles with a combination of sleeping pills and booze. She left a rambling note to the effect that she was a far better writer than her grandfather (Twain) and it was the world’s loss for not realizing how brilliant she was.
Diana e-mailed the lead editor on the (3 volume) Autobiography of Mark Twain project in 2011 to see if she had any documentation indicating who performed Nina’s autopsy. She did not. Perhaps it was my father?
February 2017