Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke (* 10. October 1903 in Parafjanawa , today Belarus ; † 16th January 1969 in Santa Monica , born a Russian. Владимир Александрович Дукельский , Vladimir Alexandrovich Dukelski, Engl. Transcription Vladimir Dukelsky; ) was an American composer of Russian origin . He wrote both classical music and musicals and songs.

Live and act

The Dukelski family was partly of noble origin and lived in Kiev ; from the age of 11 he attended the local conservatory, where he studied composition with Reinhold Glière and music theory with Boleslaw Jaworski . In 1919 the family emigrated from the country that had been shaken by the Russian civil war , first to Istanbul and then to New York City in 1921 . There he met George Gershwin in 1922 , who convinced him to Americanize his name and call himself Vernon Duke. Vernon Duke's first songs were written in the same year; but he continued to write art music under the name Vladimir Dukelsky. In 1924 he went to Paris , where Serge Diaghilev commissioned him to compose a ballet: Zéphyr et Flora was performed by the Ballets Russes in 1925 with a choreography by Léonide Massine and a stage design by Georges Braque ; it received good reviews. Sergei Prokofiev emphasized in an overview the demanding melodies, very well designed, harmoniously beautiful and not too modernistic. Prokofiev was impressed by the talent of the younger man; the two composers became friends, saw each other regularly for a long time and corresponded until 1946 (when Prokofiev had to break off contact for political reasons). In 1928, Dukelsky's first symphony was performed by Sergei Alexandrowitsch Kusewizki and his orchestra in Paris.

In the late 1920s he wrote songs for English musicals and revues in London, such as the musical "The Yellow Mask", which was based on a script by Edgar Wallace . In 1929 he returned to the USA. His first Broadway musical, "Walk a Little Faster", was a success in 1932. It contained the piece " April in Paris ", which became a world hit and later a jazz standard ; further hits and standards such as “ Autumn in New York ” (1934), “ I Can't Get Started ” (1936) or “Taking A Chance On Love” followed. Vernon Duke worked with lyricists such as Ira Gershwin and Yip Harburg. At the same time he continued to publish new classical music under his birth name Dukelsky, such as the oratorio The End of St. Petersburg or the piano concerto Dédicaces, which was premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Kusevizky . In 1937 he completed Gershwin's score for The Goldwyn Follies . He acquired American citizenship in 1939. In 1940 he had his greatest success with the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky .

In 1952 he worked with Ogden Nash and Sammy Cahn for the musical "Two's Company" . In 1955 he gave up his birth name completely and since then has also composed in the field of classical music as "Vernon Duke"; in the same year he published his autobiography Passport to Paris . In 1957 he married the singer Kay McCracken. In 1962 he presented a volume of poems in Russian.

literature

• Vernon Duke: Passport to Paris . Boston-Toronto: Little, Brown and Co., 1955

Web links

• Biography (English) ( Memento of 11 December 2003 at the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 23, 2018