The Selected Writings of John Duke 1917-1984

Ruth C. Friedberg and Robin Fisher, editors, The Selected Writings of John Duke 1917-1984. Lanham, MD: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2007. Paper, xii, 262 pp., $45.00. ISBN 0-8108-5867-3. www.scarecrowpress.com The art songs of John Duke long have been a staple of singers and voice teachers. Since the composer's death in 1984, new publications of his songs-notably four volumes by Southern Music Company, and reprints of those held by G. Schirmer, Boosey & Hawkes, and Carl Fischer-have secured the place of his works in the standard American art song repertoire. While many pedagogues and performers are familiar with Duke's songs, few are acquainted with his prose. Ruth Friedberg and Robin Fisher, for The Selected Writings of John Duke 1917-1984, collected articles, essays, lectures, reviews, diaries, and correspondence that reveal the composer's opinions and thoughts. The book begins with a brief biography of Duke, and an overview of his songwriting. The authors underline the composer's deep affinity for poetry, and his fervent wish to bring the close correspondence of text and music characteristic of the German lied to American song. The volume consists of primary sources organized into various categories. The first section is comprised of the diaries and notebooks Duke kept as a student and through the early years of his academic career. He entered the Peabody Conservatory as a scholarship student in piano and composition when he was sixteen years old. His diaries reveal a serious pupil of the piano (in his second year, he performed the Saint-Saens piano concerto with the Peabody Symphony) and composition. In regard to the latter, he makes frequent mention of his works for the piano, but none about art songs. Duke's journals also testify to his thoughtfulness about music (evidenced by his comments about concerts he attended), literature, and world events (in one entry, he muses about the fallacy of patriotism). As Duke matured, his notebooks chronicled his intellectual and musical growth. After graduating from Peabody, he moved to New York, but the strain of performing, the desire to be removed from a cosmopolitan hub, and perhaps his marriage in 1922 led him to accept an appointment as professor of piano at Smith College in Northhampton, Massachusetts in 1923. In the early 1920s, the promising pianist penned poetry on the meaning of life, but by 1930, the budding academic sketched outlines for essays on the art of culture, the arts and prosperity, and problems of muscular efficiency in piano playing. He also began two essays entitled Art and God. The themes can be traced from his earlier diaries, and identify the composer as a believer in divine inspiration. Shortly after his appointment at Smith College, Duke became a columnist for the local Northhampton paper. From his output, Friedberg and Fisher selected eleven columns that range from commentaries on recitals to the state of American music. (Duke's pronouncement on the latter, dated 1934, may resonate with contemporary critics: . . it seems that the present day artist, like the present day politician, assumes too readily that all that is necessary for progress is effort and activity and that thought and inspiration will take care of themselves.) Duke also served as reviewer for the newspaper, and Friedberg and Fisher chose a sampling of the critiques that clarify the composer's attitudes about contemporary music and the art song. His predilection for shorter forms, and his disappointment with the inferior quality of the English-language songs programmed on recitals are harbingers of Duke's later preoccupation with the song form. …