Research Catalog

Title

Dvořák to Duke Ellington : a conductor explores America's music and its African American roots / Maurice Peress.

Author

Peress, Maurice.

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2004.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

viii, 254 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

"In Dvorak to Duke Ellington, Maurice Peress begins by recounting the music's formative years: Dvorak's three-year residency as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York (1892-1895), and his students, in particular Will Marion Cook and Rubin Goldmark, who would in turn become the teachers of Ellington, Gershwin, and Copland. We follow Dvorak to the famed Chicago World's Fair of 1893, where he directed a concert of his music for Bohemian Honor Day. Peress brings to light the little-known African American presence at the Fair: the piano professors, about to be ragtimers; and the gifted young artists Paul Dunbar, Harry T. Burleigh, and Cook, who gathered at the Haitian Pavilion with its director, Frederick Douglass, to organize their own gala concert for Colored Persons Day." "Peress, a conductor, is himself a part of this story; working with Duck Ellington on the "Suite from Black, Brown and Beige" and his "opera comique," Queenie Pie; conducting the world premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Mass; and reconstructing landmark American concerts at which George Antheil's Ballet Mecanique, George Gershwin' Rhapsody in Blue, James Reese Europe's Clef Club (the first all-black concert at Carnegie Hall), and Ellington's Black, Brown and Beige were first presented." "Concluding with a look at Ellington and his music, Dvorak to Duke Ellington offers an engrossing, elegant portrait of the Dvorak legacy, America's music, and the inestimable African American influence upon it."--Jacket.

Subjects

• United States
• Music > African American influences
• Peress, Maurice
• Music > United States > African American influences

Note

• Rare Book copy: Dust jacket retained.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes discography (pages 241-242), bibliographical references (p. 243-244) , and index.

Contents

Antonin Dvořák comes to America -- America and Negro music -- Dvořák's symphony "From the New World" -- The Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 -- The National Conservatory of Music of America -- Paul Laurence Dunbar, Clorilindy, and "The talented tenth" -- James Reese Europe -- George Gershwin and African American music -- Leonard Bernstein -- Gershwin's "Rhapsody in blue" -- The Clef Club concert -- Will Marion Cook -- George Antheil's "Ballet mécanique" -- Bernstein's Mass -- Duke Ellington -- Ellington's "Queenie pie" -- Ellington's "Black, brown and beige."

ISBN

• 0195098226
• 9780195098228
• 9780195374476
• 0195374479

LCCN

2003002793

OCLC

• ocm51728680
• 51728680
• SCSB-4873163

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries