Vernon Duke collection
Contributors: Copland, Aaron, 1900-1990; American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers; American Guild of Authors and Composers; Chappell and Co; Broude Brothers Limited; Carl Fischer Inc; Frank Music Corp; Little, Brown and Company; Ricordi (Firm); Weissberger & Frosch
Published: 1918
Language: eng
Number of pages: 17500
Subjects: Correspondence; Autographs
Description: The collection is in two series, Music and Non-music. The former includes his stage, vocal, and instrumental music, sketchbooks, lyric sheets, and music not by Duke, including the holograph of Signature for the High-low concerts by Aaron Copland. The latter consists of: correspondence with, among others, George Balanchine, Martin Charnin, Peter De Vries, Howard Dietz, Dean Dixon, Neshui Ertegun, Ira Gershwin, Bernard Hermann, George Ivask, Serge, Olga, and Natalie Koussevitzky, John Latouche, Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee, Lotte Lehmann, Anthony Lindsay-Hogg, Jimmy McHugh, Johnny Mercer, Ogden Nash, Gabriel Paichadze, Roland Petit, Serge Prokofiev, Ginger Rogers, Harold Rome, Ann Ronell, Nicolas Slonimsky, Leopold Stokowski, David Turet, William Walton, and Arthur Whitelaw, as well as ASCAP, American Guild of Authors & Composers, and the puplishers Broude Bros., Carl Fischer, Frank Music Corp., Little, Brown & Co., G. Ricordi, and attorneys Weissberger & Frosch; subject files of correspondence, clippings, and other material; photographs; programs; scrapbooks; and miscellaneous material.
Notes: Vernon Duke Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.

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Gift; Kay McCracken Dule Ingalls; 1980-1985.

Sound recordings; transferred to Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress.

Vernon Duke, author, poet, translator, and business man, as well as composer, was born Vladimir Alexandrovitch Dukelsky on Oct. 10, 1903, in Minsk. He studied composition with Reinhold Glière and Marian Dombrovsky at the Kiev Conservatory. Upon fleeing the Revolution with his family, Dukelsky ended up in New York in 1921. There followed a string of musicals, principally in London and New York from 1925 to 1956. During the same period, Vernon Duke (his legally changed name from 1939 when he became a U.S. citizen) composed music for film and the concert hall. He died on Jan. 16, 1969, in Santa Monica, Calif.

Finding aid available in the Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room and on the Internet.