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Mystery Concerto???

Author: mrn
Date: 2008-12-03 22:04

I was reading an old article from Time magazine dated April 7, 1941 (believe it or not, these are online). The article was about composer/arranger Robert Russell Bennett (who wrote "Suite of Old American Dances" and orchestrated many of everyone's favorite Broadway musicals).

The link is here: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,765446,00.html

Anyway, the interesting thing is the following sentence near the end:

"This week Composer Bennett performs a clarinet concerto dedicated to Benny Goodman, who once played under him in a theatre orchestra."

I am assuming since they are calling Bennett "Composer Bennett," the article must be referring to a concerto Bennett wrote. 1941 is several years before any of the Goodman-commissioned concertos I'm familiar with were written (Copland, Hindemith, Arnold). (In fact the only Goodman commission I am aware of that was composed before 1941 was Bartok's Contrasts, and that's obviously not a concerto).

Anybody have an idea what this article is referring to?

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Re: Mystery Concerto???

Author: interested bystander
Date: 2008-12-05 06:37

That was Robt. Russell Bennett's "Antique Suite" for clarinet and strings, written while he had his "Russell Bennett's Note Book" radio program on WOR, broadcast coast-to-coast, for which he wrote new pieces almost weekly. Ralph McLane (SP?) was in RRB's orchestra there at WOR at the time--the piece was written for him; this was shortly before RM took the position with Philadelphia.

Goodman played in the pit for the Gershwin show "Girl Crazy" in 1930 (for which RRB did orchestrations); Artie Shaw played in at least one Gershwin show as well (Pardon My English, 1933).

So, the RRB piece was "dedicated" to BG, but not written for him, and BG is not known to have played it. I've checked with the Philadelphia Orchestra and with RM's heir, and no one seems to no where the Antique Suite score ended up; RRB didn't keep a copy of it.

Hope that helps!

I.B.

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Re: Mystery Concerto???

Author: mrn
Date: 2008-12-05 14:18

Yes, that answers my question. Too bad the score is missing. I'll bet there's no recording of the radio program, either.

I've always enjoyed listening to and playing Bennett's lush orchestrations, so it made me really curious to hear what this piece sounded like.

My orchestra is playing a Bennett arrangement of White Christmas this weekend. Every time we hit that final 6/9 chord with that extra little harmonic zip from the muted trumpet, it makes me think, "They just don't write chords like that any more! Can we play it again?"

Thanks!

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