Vernon Duke

Vernon Duke (10 October 1903 – 16 January 1969) was a Russian-born American composer and songwriter who also wrote under his birth name, Vladimir Dukelsky.

Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky (Russian: Владимир Александрович Дукельский) was born in 1903 into a Belarusian noble family in the village of Parfyanovka, Pskov Governorate, Russian Empire.

The Dukelskys resided in Kiev, and Vladimir's only visit to Saint Petersburg and Moscow occurred in the summer of 1915.

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 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.

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.

In 1924, Dukelsky returned to Europe.

In Paris, he received a commission from Serge Diaghilev to compose a ballet.

Dukelsky's first theatrical production, Zephyr and Flora, was staged in the 1925 season of Ballets Russes, with choreography by Léonide Massine and scenography by Georges Braque, to great critical acclaim.

In a review of musical novelties of the season, Sergei Prokofiev described it as full of "superior melodies, very well designed, harmonically beautiful and not too 'modernist'."

Prokofiev was as impressed with the young talent as Diaghilev was, and soon the composers became close friends.

Dukelsky's First Symphony was premiered by Serge Koussevitzky and his orchestra in 1928 in Paris on the same bill as excerpts from Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel.

In 1929, he returned to the United States with the intention of settling in the country permanently.

He composed and published much serious music, but devoted greater efforts to establishing himself on Broadway.

Some of Dukelsky's and Prokofiev's compositions of the 1930s bear evidence of their musical dialogue.

The impressions of that summer were later echoed in Dukelsky's oratorio The End of St. Petersburg (1931–37).

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 Kiev Conservatory, where he studied composition with Reinhold Glière and musical theory with Boleslav Yavorsky.

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.

The support and devotion of Serge Koussevitzky, who published Dukelsky's chamber music and conducted his orchestral scores, helped him develop his classical works.

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.

Dukelsky's concerto for piano, orchestra, and soprano obbligato, titled Dédicaces (1935–1937), was premièred by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra in January 1939 in New York.

His oratorio, The End of St. Petersburg, was premiered a year earlier by Schola Cantorum and the New York Philharmonic under Hugh Ross.

In 1937, the composer was asked to complete Gershwin's last score, a soundtrack to a Technicolor extravaganza The Goldwyn Follies, to which he contributed two parody ballets choreographed by George Balanchine, and the song "Spring Again".

They frequently saw each other until Prokofiev returned to the Soviet Union in 1938; they continued to correspond until 1946.

In 1939, Dukelsky became an American citizen and took Vernon Duke as his legal name.

He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love," with lyrics by Ted Fetter and 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.

Duke's greatest success came a year later, with the Broadway musical Cabin in the Sky (1940), choreographed by George Balanchine and performed by an all-black cast at the Martin Beck Theater in New York.

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.

His Third Symphony (1946) was dedicated to the memory of Koussevitzky's wife, Natalie.

His family was of the small gentry class; the 1954 Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians referred to his paternal grandmother, née Princess Tumanishvili, as having been "directly descended from the kings of Georgia".

According to Duke, his mother also had some Austrian and Spanish ancestry.

The Jewish Standard lists him among Jewish musicians, for reasons unknown; Composer Jack Gottlieb denies this claim.

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.