Vernon Duke

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Vernon Duke
Broadway musicals, Classical
Occupation(s)Songwriter, composer

Vernon Duke (10 October [

John Latouche (1940), "I Can't Get Started," with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1936), "April in Paris," with lyrics by E. Y. ("Yip") Harburg (1932), and "What Is There To Say," for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, also with Harburg. He wrote the words and music for "Autumn in New York" (1934) for the revue Thumbs Up! In his book, American Popular Song, The Great Innovators 1900-1950, composer Alec Wilder praises this song, writing, “The verse may be the most ambitious I’ve ever seen." Duke also collaborated with lyricists Johnny Mercer, Ogden Nash, and Sammy Cahn.[2]

Early life

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky (

Jewish musicians, for reasons unknown;[6] Composer Jack Gottlieb denies this claim.[7]

The Dukelskys resided in

Kiev, and Vladimir's only visit to Saint Petersburg and Moscow occurred in the summer of 1915. The impressions of that summer were later echoed in Dukelsky's oratorio The End of St. Petersburg (1931–37).[citation needed] The title is a reference to the film The End of St. Petersburg, directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin
.

At the age of eleven, Dukelsky was admitted to the

musical theory with Boleslav Yavorsky. In 1919, his family escaped from the turmoil of civil war in Russia and spent a year and a half with other refugees in Constantinople. In 1921, they obtained American visas and sailed steerage class on the SS King Alexander to New York
.

He underwent his immigration inspection at Ellis Island. On the passenger list, the purser of the King Alexander recorded his name as Vladimir Doukelsky, in the French fashion. In 1922 in New York, George Gershwin befriended the young immigrant. Gershwin (born Jacob Gershwine) suggested that Dukelsky truncate and Americanize his surname, taking Vernon as his given name. Dukelsky's first songs published under his pen name were conceived that year, but he continued to write classical music and Russian poetry under his birth name until 1955.[1]

Career

In 1924, Dukelsky returned to Europe. In

Serge Koussevitzky and his orchestra in 1928 in Paris on the same bill as excerpts from Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel. Some of Dukelsky's and Prokofiev's compositions of the 1930s bear evidence of their musical dialogue.[citation needed
]

In the late 1920s, Dukelsky divided his time between Paris, where his more classical works were performed, and London, where he composed numbers for musical comedies under his pen name Vernon Duke.[1] In 1929, he returned to the United States with the intention of settling in the country permanently.[1] He composed and published much serious music, but devoted greater efforts to establishing himself on Broadway. Duke's songs "April in Paris" (1932), "Autumn in New York" (1934), "I Like the Likes of You" (1934), "Water Under the Bridge" (1934), and "I Can't Get Started" (1936) were 1930s hits.[1]

The support and devotion of Serge Koussevitzky, who published Dukelsky's

Martin Beck Theater in New York.[1]

Military service

Between 1942 and 1944, he served in the US Coast Guard. While in service, he discovered Sid Caesar, a saxophone player in the Coast Guard Band, and wrote a touring show for the Coast Guard called Tars & Spars. He also conceived some of his finest music in the classical tradition, including a Cello Concerto (commissioned by Gregor Piatigorsky) and a Violin Concerto.

Third Symphony

His Third Symphony (1946) was dedicated to the memory of Koussevitzky's wife, Natalie. Over the years, Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky, Dukelsky's devoted supporters, had become his surrogate family. When Dukelsky's mother died, in 1942, the composer took the conductor's refusal to commission the work with great bitterness. The dedication was revoked and the relationship soured.

In 1946, Duke left the United States for France, where he continued his double career of being a classical composer and a songwriter (now setting to music the texts of French lyricists).[1] By 1948, the composer was back in America. He moved from New York to California, where he spent his last decades writing songs, film and theater scores, chamber music, poetry in Russian and polemical articles and memoirs in English.[1] On October 30, 1957, he married singer Kay McCracken. His final appearance on Broadway came less than two weeks later with the two songs and incidental music he wrote for the Helen Hayes show, Jean Anouilh's Time Remembered (1940) (French title: Léocadia) which ran for 247 performances. He continued to try to mount Broadway musicals during the last decade of his life, including two shows that closed during tryouts, and one that was never produced.

Later works

As a classical composer, Dukelsky used the same musical language as his modernist contemporaries Sergei Prokofiev, Arthur Lourié, and, to a lesser extent, Igor Stravinsky. His harmonies, however, were highly original. As a songwriter and author of theatrical and film music, his work was close to that of George Gershwin and Harold Arlen, but he developed an idiosyncratic voice of his own.

Death

Duke died in Santa Monica, California on 16 January 1969,[1] during surgery for lung cancer. His numerous papers—musical and literary manuscripts and correspondence in English, French, and Russian—are stored in the Musical Division of the Library of Congress.

Works

As Vladimir Dukelsky

  • Zéphyr et Flore 1925; Ode Epitaphe 1931 poems by Osip Mandelstam in memorial to Diaghilev. Sung in Russian Ilma Achmadeeva (soprano), Netherlands Theatre Choir, Residentie Orchestra of the Hague. Gennady Rozhdestvensky Chandos. 1999
  • Cello Concerto 1946; Samuel Magill, Cello. Piano Concerto Orchestrated by Scott Dunn. Scott Dunn, Piano. Dmitri Yablonsky, Conductor. Russian Philharmonic. Naxos. 2007

As Vernon Duke

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 0-85112-939-0
    .
  2. ^ "Vernon Duke Snapshot". Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. Retrieved 13 August 2008.
  3. ^ V. V. Ivanov, Gasparov M. (eds.) Музыка и незвучащее. Moscow: Nauka, 2000. ISBN 9785020115934. P. 219.
  4. ISBN 9780674255722
    .
  5. ^ According to another source, his birthplace was a small railroad station in Minsk Governorate. At the time, his mother "happened to be traveling by train". See: Vernon Duke. Passport to Paris, Boston-Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1955, p. 6.
  6. ^ "How Many Famous Jewish Composers Can You Name?". Jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com.
  7. ISBN 9780791485026
    .

External links

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