Vernon Duke, Chamber Works torrent

"For a number of years, Vernon Duke has been a 'two-headed monster', creating music of fine modern substance for the stage and the concert hall, and at the same time dashing off lyrical ditties for the musical market at large, Vernon Duke furnishing the means of subsistence to Vladimir Dukelsky [Duke's birth name]. The two heads of the monster were not entirely separable, for there was spiritual kinship between them. The lyrical élan of Duke's popular songs had a counterpart in the poetic melos of his symphonic and chamber music. Moreover, even in the popular field, the subtle harmonies and the greatly developed contrapuntal texture betrayed a musical mind tempted from infancy by sophistication. [...] he never abandoned so-called serious music; he continued to compose symphonic and chamber works, secular cantatas, ballets, piano pieces. He elaborated a style galant with a modernistic veneer; there are Russian, French, and cosmopolitan ingredients in his music, but the combination, the bouquet, is his own"
(from Nicolas Slonimsky's liner notes to the LP)

Works on this release:

- String Quartet in C (1956)

- Three Caprices for Piano (1944)

- Variations on an Old Russian Chant (1955)

- Surrealist Suite for Piano (1939)

MP3 - 320 kbps with complete scans. Enjoy and please keep seeding fo a while !