These are all world premiere recordings of concert music from the pen of the composer of such hit songs in the Great American Songbook as April in Paris, Autumn in New York, and I Can’t Get Started. The composer’s “serious” works were published under his original name: Vladimir Dukelsky. He contributed to more than 17 American and British musicals, and worked with such lyricists as Ira Gershwin and Ogden Nash.
Both George Gershwin and Arthur Rubinstein took an interest in the talents of the 19-year-old Dukelsky when he arrived in New York City. Rubinstein asked him for a single-movement piano concerto, “not too cerebral.” This piano concerto in C was the result, a work the composer had conceived originally back in Russia as early as 1919. But somehow it was never orchestrated or performed by Rubinstein. In 1998 pianist and conductor Scott Dunn orchestrated it, working from the original two-piano score. The Cello Concerto is a more formal three-movement work, influenced by Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Shostakovich. Gregor Piatigorsky performed the work at its premiere in l947. The Bostonian Suite for solo piano was dedicated to members of the Boston Symphony – its seven movements portray people and places in Boston. Taken together, these three works show another side of Vernon Duke’s undeniable composing skills and support the need for a revival of more of his music.
– John Sunier
