Passport to Paris.
Edition: [1st ed.]
Publisher: Little, Brown
Published: 1955
Place of publication: Boston
Language: eng
Number of pages: 502
Subjects: Musicians -- Correspondence, reminiscences, etc
First sentence: According to Who's Who, I have spent my "entire career" (come, come, I'm still spending it) writing two kinds of music: the serious or unrewarding kind as Vladimir Dukelsky and the unserious but lucrative variety as Vernon Duke.
Description: Autobiographical account by the Russian born composer Vladmir Dukelsky, who in the middle 1930s became better known as Vernon Duke, writer of songs for stage and screen. Duke recounts his earliest, privileged years in Russia, his musical exposure and education, the haunting memories of his father's death, the generous spirit and strength of his mother and the nightmarish few years of suffering during the revolution of 1917, which eventually forced the family from their homeland for good in 1920.

Duke follows with accounts of his extensive travel in Europe and the US, the development of his conflicting musical leanings, details  of the origins of his compositions and how they fared in their respective arenas,  and his wide range of intimate friends and colleagues in both musical realms in which he became accomplished: Diaghilev, Prokofiev, Koussevitsky, Massine, Balanchine, the Gershwins, Ogden Nash, Larry Hart and countless others. Duke recounts his repeated, deeply painful heartbreaks over failed relationships, his years of service in the United States Coast Guard during WWII and follows with an honest, often indignant, assessment of his subsequent failures on the American stage. His final chapter reveals a happy, final relocation to California, where both his creative and personal lives slowly become simpler and more focused.

Personally self-effacing, professionally self-important, and ever loyal to his family, friends and musical roots and ideals, Vernon Duke paints a direct and highly literate picture of a determined, born artist who possessed perhaps too many gifts.
Notes: Autobiographical.
Table of contents: label: I
title: I Emerge
pagenum: 3; label: II
title: To Music
pagenum: 18; label: III
title: Kiev Conservatory
pagenum: 33; label: IV
title: Came the Revolution
pagenum: 42; label: V
title: Odessa
pagenum: 58; label: VI
title: Turkish Delight
pagenum: 67; label: VII
title: The Bad Old Days
pagenum: 81; label: VIII
title: Passport to Paris
pagenum: 106; label: IX
title: Fame Did Not Delay
pagenum: 133; label: X
title: Bright Young People
pagenum: 155; label: XI
title: After the Ballet Is Over
pagenum: 180; label: XII
title: Back to the New Country
pagenum: 219; label: XIII
title: Settling Down
pagenum: 250; label: XIV
title: The Good Years
pagenum: 281; label: XV
title: In My Thirties in the Thirties
pagenum: 318; label: XVI
title: The Fiery Forties - Part One
pagenum: 368; label: XVII
title: The Fiery Forties - Part Two
pagenum: 395; label: XVIII
title: Paris Interlude
pagenum: 430; label: XIX
title: Californian Coda
pagenum: 458