Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Duke Ellington

Ellington’s Grieg A Jazz “Grotesque”?

Another tribute to Edvard Grieg on his birthday: Duke Ellington’s take on “Peer Gynt.” When the album came out in 1960, the Grieg Foundation was not flattered. The president of the organization found the arrangements to be ugly and uninspired and felt that Ellington and Billy Strayhorn had made Solveig “bray like a sow.” Critics in America, at best, expressed confusion. While conceding that the undertaking was a serious one, the results were deemed “grotesque” and even “contemptible.” The classical people weren’t happy. The jazz people weren’t happy. In the process, some reached past the Duke to take a slap at Grieg for his “lightweight” originals. Ouch! Tough crowd!

More about it here:

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mp/9460447.0005.205/–duke-ellington-billy-strayhorn-and-the-adventures-of-peer?rgn=main;view=fulltext

Fiedler conducting the original suites:

June 15, 2021
Black Composers on WPRB

Florence Price’s “Mississippi Suite.” Joseph White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp minor. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Symphonic Variations on an African Air.” David Baker’s “Three Ethnic Dances” for clarinet and orchestra. Adolphus Hailstork’s “Done Made My Vow.” George Walker’s “Piano Concerto.” Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown and Beige.”

These are some of the pieces we’ll be listening to this morning, as we explore the diversity of music of the black experience, from 6 to 11 EST, on WPRB 103.3 FM and at wprb.com. We’ll be serving your coffee black, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 23, 2017
Black Composers on WPRB Radio

William Levi Dawson’s “Negro Folk Symphony.” Joseph White’s Violin Concerto in F-sharp Minor. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s “Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.” Olly Wilson’s “Piano Piece for Piano and Electronic Sound.” Joseph Bologne, le Chevalier de Saint-George’s Symphony in G Major, Op. 11, No. 1. Adolphus Hailstork’s exuberant psalm-setting for soloist, chorus and orchestra, “I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes.” Florence Price’s Symphony No. 3. Duke Ellington’s “A Tone Parallel to Harlem.”

These are some of the pieces we’ll be listening to this morning, as we explore the diversity of music of the black experience, from 6 to 11 ET, on WPRB 103.3 FM or at wprb.com. We’ll be serving your coffee black, on Classic Ross Amico.

February 19, 2016

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