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I. The Spring
beg - mm. 15 |
Skills & Techniques: Accuracy, Rhythms, Slurring Flexibility, Soft Playing
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Horn 1 (F)
Due to restrictions, sheet music for this excerpt is not provided.
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The Louisville Orchestra (1983)
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Detroit Symphony Orchestra (1993)
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VI. Fals
reh. C2 - reh. E2 |
Skills & Techniques: High Register, Loud Playing, Marcato Style, Rhythms
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Horn 1-4 (F)
Due to restrictions, sheet music for this excerpt is not provided.
The Louisville Orchestra (1983)
Composer & Composition Information
Duke Ellington (1899-1974)
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Duke Ellington was a pianist, a composer, and a bandleader. He was born in Washington, D.C. in 1899 as Edward Kennedy Ellington. Duke was a name he picked up in childhood, given to him to describe his elegant manner. His parents were part of the Black middle class of Washington, D.C., and both played music at home.
Ellington started piano lessons at age seven, but it wasn't the music he was learning at his teacher's side that interested him but instead the ragtime music he heard at dance parties and pool halls when he was a teenager. It took being fired from several bands, however, for Ellington to finally learn how to read music! Ellington dropped out of high school to pursue a career in music, and the five-piece band he played with, The Washingtonians, moved from Washington, D.C. to New York City in 1923. Listen to them perform Ellington's "East Saint Louis Toodle-oo, opens a new window" recorded in 1927 (or perhaps you'd like to hear the band Steely Dan's rendition of this tune from 1974, opens a new window). Under Ellington's leadership, the band grew and moved up from Times Square to Harlem's Cotton Club in 1927. You can get a feel for what the band sounded like by listening to this recording of the band from 1928 where they play the song "Diga Diga Do, opens a new window" (written by Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh). He stayed at the Cotton Club through June of 1931. This popular club featured Black performers, but catered to a wealthy White audience. The text & image are reprinted from the Boston Public Library where more information about the composer can be found. |
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Suite from The River
Among the large-scale works that occupied Ellington’s creative efforts—amid constant touring—in the later years of his life were various suites, film scores, the three oratorio-like “sacred concerts,” and a ballet, The River. Commissioned in 1970 by American Ballet Theatre for choreographer Alvin Ailey, The River “was to be all water music, and it was to follow the course of this stream through various stages: through a meander, a falls, a whirlpool, and then gurgling rapids. I fell in love with the idea,” as Ailey said in a 1983 interview. “Once he decided that he was going to write this river piece as a ballet, he had all the world’s water music on recordings. He had the scores and everything. He had Handel’s Water Music; he had Debussy’s La Mer; he had Benjamin Britten’s Peter Grimes. He said, ‘I’ve been listening to this to see what other people have done with water music’.”
Ailey had worked with the Duke earlier on Ellington’s show My People for the Chicago World Centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, but he was not prepared for the way the composer worked on this ballet. Ellington would first record the numbers as piano solos, then with his band, create several versions of each piece, and then send them to Ailey individually. The choreographer found himself revising his dances almost daily as the premiere approached.
“The music was just beautiful, but it was driving me out of my mind,” Ailey said. “I talked to people who worked with him. They said, ‘Well, that’s the way he works. You’re just going to have to learn how to work with him like that. He’ll take 16 bars into a studio, eight bars of this and two bars of that, and comes out four hours later with eight fantastic pieces. That’s just the nature of the way he works.’ He wrote with the orchestra—the orchestra was his instrument. He composed in the recording studio; his band was his Stradivarius.”
The text is written by & reprinted from John Henken (Los Angeles Philharmonic) where more information about the composition can be found.
Ailey had worked with the Duke earlier on Ellington’s show My People for the Chicago World Centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation, but he was not prepared for the way the composer worked on this ballet. Ellington would first record the numbers as piano solos, then with his band, create several versions of each piece, and then send them to Ailey individually. The choreographer found himself revising his dances almost daily as the premiere approached.
“The music was just beautiful, but it was driving me out of my mind,” Ailey said. “I talked to people who worked with him. They said, ‘Well, that’s the way he works. You’re just going to have to learn how to work with him like that. He’ll take 16 bars into a studio, eight bars of this and two bars of that, and comes out four hours later with eight fantastic pieces. That’s just the nature of the way he works.’ He wrote with the orchestra—the orchestra was his instrument. He composed in the recording studio; his band was his Stradivarius.”
The text is written by & reprinted from John Henken (Los Angeles Philharmonic) where more information about the composition can be found.
Notable Performances/Recordings:
Los Angeles Philharmonic (2022)
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013)
The Louisville Orchestra (1983)
Los Angeles Philharmonic (2022)
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013)
The Louisville Orchestra (1983)