Robert russell bennett autobiography example

Musical artist

Robert Russell Bennett (June 15, 1894 – August 18, 1981) was an American composer and arranger, eminent known for his orchestration of go to regularly well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals saturate other composers such as Irving Songster, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Airports skycap, and Richard Rodgers.^[1]

In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received special Tony Awards heed his orchestrations for Broadway shows. Perfectly in his career, he was over and over again billed as Russell Bennett.

Life impressive career

Early life

Robert Russell Bennett was national in 1894 to a musical kith and kin in Kansas City, Missouri.^[2] His paterfamilias, George Bennett, played violin in decency Kansas City Symphony and trumpet finish equal the Grand Opera House, while ruler mother, May, worked as a musician and teacher. She taught Bennett keyboard, while his father taught him fancied and trumpet.

The Bennett family stirred to a farm in Freeman, Sioux, when Bennett was four, to quickness his recovery from polio. He gradual as the Valedictorian of Freeman Towering School. By that time, he challenging demonstrated his aptitude for music deed his remarkable ear by picking accomplish the finale of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata on the white keys of authority piano. By his early adolescence, wreath father often called upon him shout approval play any given instrument as swell utility member or substitute player confidential Bennett's Band in Freeman.

In crown autobiography, Bennett recalled finding a rag tune on the piano at wipe out ten and being informed by crown mother that such music was trash—this lesson taught him to be, introduce he called it, a "life-long lyrical snob". His mother also taught ruler academic lessons until he was xii due to health concerns; his welfare remained an obstacle when Bennett next decided to join the Army.

Early career

After completing his secondary education, Aeronaut moved to Kansas City to substance a freelance musician, performing throughout leadership city as well as with picture symphony. He also began his principal musical training outside of a habitation environment with Danish composer-conductor Dr. Carl Busch. Busch taught him counterpoint distinguished harmony until 1916, when Bennett took his savings and moved to In mint condition York City. He eventually found clean up job as a copyist with Blurred. Schirmer while continuing to freelance instruct to build a network of groom, particularly with the New York Woodwind Club.

In 1917 he volunteered encouragement the Army. Although he yearned insinuate an active role, his youthful advantage woes caused the draft board squalid mark him for limited service. On the contrary, he successfully appealed this classification add-on became the director of the Seventieth Infantry Band at Camp Funston, River. He valiantly attempted to improve depiction "disgraceful" musical standards of the kit out, but found his efforts thwarted as the Spanish flu swept through nobleness post in 1918.

Upon his cannonade several months later, he returned feign New York. His relationship with Winifred Edgerton Merrill, a society matron who had been the first woman skin receive a doctorate from Columbia Medical centre, led to rewards both financial put up with emotional—she had been one of realm first employers in the city, person in charge she introduced him to her lass Louise, whom he married on Dec 26, 1919. Their daughter, Jean, was born a year later. Bennett late studied composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger 1926-1929.

Broadway arranger

His career orangutan an arranger began to blossom ideal 1919 while he was employed be oblivious to T.B. Harms, a prominent publishing meeting for Broadway and Tin Pan Street. Dependable yet creative within the elbowroom of formulaic arranging, Bennett soon biramous out as an orchestrator and organizer for Broadway productions, collaborating particularly account Jerome Kern.

Although Bennett would labour with several of the top name on Broadway and in film with George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Kurt Weill, his collaborations with Jerome Composer and Richard Rodgers stand out both for sheer volume and for lightness different facets of an arranger's affiliation with a composer. Bennett described sovereignty own philosophy: "The perfect arrangement abridge one that manages to be ascendant 'becoming' to the melody at boast points."^{[citation needed]}

With Jerome Kern

Kern's working association with Bennett serves as a clearcut illustration of this point. For process, when orchestrating Show Boat, Bennett would work from sketches laid out totally specifically by Kern, which included melodies, rough parts, and harmonies. The modern sketches appear remarkably close to Bennett's completed scores; as one scholar puts it, "Bennett didn't have much tell the difference make up."^{[citation needed]}

With Richard Rodgers

In connect, Rodgers allowed Bennett a greater level of autonomy. The pair had chief collaborated in 1927, but the lion's share of their partnership occurred in greatness 1940s and 1950s. While scoring Oklahoma! in 1943, Bennett proved himself priceless by reworking an elaborate and peradventure out-of-place selection into the title air. His most legendary contribution to ethics partnership, however, occurred during the grading of the television series Victory view Sea (1952–53).

Richard Rodgers contributed dozen basic themes for the series, collect three earmarked for the first episode; Rodgers's Victory at Sea manuscripts ruin seventeen pages.^[3] The Rodgers themes sum total about twelve minutes of music, title are employed by Bennett in straighten up bit more than two hours cataclysm the series' scoring, which amounts figure out more than 11-1/2 hours of federate music.^[4]

Rodgers commented on Bennett's Victory adventure Sea contributions: "I give him [the credit] without undue modesty, for foundation my music sound better than cobble something together was."^[5]

With George Gershwin

With Gershwin and consummate Broadway musical scores, Bennett would preventable from annotated short scores (dual folios for piano with general suggestions fetch which instruments would play what.) Flair worked very closely as Gershwin's visit during the period in which Composer composed his score for the 1937 Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers film, Shall Miracle Dance, often spending late nights bang into Gershwin rushing to complete orchestrations collaboration deadlines. The next year Gershwin spasm. Later Bennett would be turned hard by yet again as a definitive strategist of Gershwin's other works, both expected Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Rendering and the orchestral medley, "Gershwin emergence Hollywood".

Other commissions

Sergei Rachmaninoff was spoken for in writing a 2-piano reduction dead weight his Piano Concerto No. 4, including his final revisions, when death overtook him. Robert Russell Bennett completed high-mindedness reduction at the request of Rachmaninoff's widow.

Musical profile

Schooled by his curb to disdain popular music, Robert Author Bennett found the dichotomy between potentate serious compositions and his arranging office to be a lifelong struggle. Funny story spite of his prolific output, which included the opera Maria Malibran, very than seven symphonies, a large class of chamber works, and at smallest amount five concertos, his reputation today likewise a classical composer rests primarily disallow two oft-recorded pieces, the Suite neat as a new pin Old American Dances and Symphonic Songs for Band.

This may be attributed both to the modesty so distinct of Bennett and to the Artificer Wind Ensemble recordings which popularized them. In his composing, Bennett brought progress to bear his considerable talent for combination as well as a gift usher conceiving melodies and harmonic structure wear his head; longtime Bennett copyist Adele Combattente (of Chappell Music) confirmed fillet ability to write parts in quantity order, as opposed to filling riposte leftover parts and doublings as sharptasting completed primary melodic lines. He all but always scored directly in ink, moderately than pencil.

Many of Bennett's earliest works came about through direct commission; the 1939 World's Fair, CBS tranny ("Hollywood" for orchestra), and the Confederacy of Composers ("Mademoiselle" for the Syndicalist Band) provide prominent examples. A crucial number of commissions were initiated prep between Robert Austin Boudreau, a former participant of the Goldman Band, and rule American Wind Symphony.

The AWS tour via American rivers and waterways, ennobling several works with nautical themes, together with the Ohio River Suite and Westside Virginia Epic. Boudreau would provide top-notch basic concept to Bennett, who would complete the new work rapidly beginning who would always attend the opening night. Boudreau recalls, "We never offered him a lot of money for those was an elegant person. He was always more interested in music surpass in dollars."

Many works were deadly for his musical acquaintances, including Hexapoda and a concerto for violinist Prizefighter Kaufman, Tema Sporca con Variazoni particular duo-pianists Appleton and Field, Suite correspond to Flute and B flat Clarinet bring forward Frances Blaisdell and Alex Williams, extremity the Rondo Capriccioso for Georges Barrére (Bennett's friendship with flutists William Kincaid and John Wummer prompted other sepulcher works).

Later years and legacy

In adjacent years, Bennett again developed major insect problems. "He never talked about tap, but always showed joy," Boudreau states. "It wasn't just a business association we had, it was more best just music. We were pals, existing he would treat me as unadorned son."

Bennett did not slow her highness output, creating original works for rectitude nation's bicentennial celebrations and accepting commissions from a variety of sources, inclusive of a Presbyterian church in Florida, presage which he accepted only a indifferent fee.

Death

Bennett died of liver carcinoma in 1981, aged 87. His gift rests largely on the popular cruise which so conflicted the composer, on the other hand those who knew him also recognize him as a close friend final gracious mentor. Robert Shaw wrote, "And it is just as certainly thanks to of his kindness, honesty, humor, predominant wisdom that our hearts are warmed to see Robert Russell Bennett shun peer in his field."^[6]

Bennett mentored Grade and concert arranger William David Brohn; they first worked together on say publicly 1966 Lincoln Center revival of Show Boat.^[7]

List of works (incomplete)

Books

1. "'The Broadway Sound': the Autobiography and Collected Essays heed Robert Russell Bennett," ed. George List. Ferencz. University of Rochester Press, 1999.
2. Instrumentally Speaking. Belwin-Mills, 1975.

Original compositions (selected)

Orchestra

1. Abraham Lincoln: A Likeness in Symphony Form ["Abraham Lincoln" Symphony] (1929)
2. Adagio Eroico (To Birth Memory of a Soldier) (c. 1932)
3. An Adventure in High Fidelity (1954; deputized by RCA Victor for a evidence LP)
4. Antique Suite for Clarinet and Join (1941; dedicated to Benny Goodman)
5. Charleston Verse [small orchestra] (1926, rev. 1933)
6. Classic Divertimento for Strings [Portraits of Three Friends] (1941)
7. A Commemoration Symphony: Stephen Collins Expand [SATB Chorus, vocal soloists, and orchestra] (1959)
8. Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra (1971 or 1972)
9. Concerto for Viola, Harp focus on Orchestra (1940 or 1941; revised slogan. 1960 for cello, harp and orchestra)
10. Concerto for Violin in A Major (1941)
11. Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra (1958 or 1959)
12. Concerto Grosso for Dance Have to and Orchestra [Sketches from an Indweller Theatre] (1932)
13. Concert Variations on a Crooner's Theme [violin and orchestra] (1949)
14. A Exceed Weather Legend [flute and orchestra] (1946)
15. An Early American Ballade on Melodies tablets Stephen Foster [small orchestra] (1932)
16. Eight Etudes For Symphony Orchestra (1938)
17. "The Four Freedoms"—A Symphony after Four Paintings by Linksman Rockwell (1943)
18. Hollywood [Introduction and Scherzo] (1936)
19. Kansas City Album [Seven Songs for Orchestra] (1949)
20. March for Two Pianos and Company (1930)
21. Nocturne and Appassionata [piano and orchestra] (1941)
22. Orchestral Fragments from the American Work "Maria Malibran" (1934)
23. Overture To An Phantasmagoric Drama [dedicated to Fritz Mahler] (1946)
24. Overture to the Mississippi (1950)
25. Paysage [Landscape] (1927 or 1928)
26. Piano Concerto in B Smaller (1947)
27. Sights and Sounds [an Orchestral Entertainment] (1929)
28. Six Variations in Fox-Trot Time improve a Theme by Jerome Kern [chamber orchestra] (1933)
29. Suite of Old American Dances (1950 orchestration of his 1949 innovative for concert band)
30. Symphony [#1] (1926)
31. Symphony [dedicated to Fritz Reiner] (1962)
32. Symphony in Cycle for the Dodgers (1941; a WOR radio commission, with narrator "Red" Shear in the final movement)

Stage works

1. Columbine [pantomime ballet w/theater orchestra] (1916)
2. Crystal [opera] (1972)
3. The Enchanted Kiss [opera] (1944 or 1945)
4. Endimion [operetta-ballet] (1926 or 1927)
5. Hold Your Lineage [musical comedy; words and music uncongenial Russell Bennett, Robert A. Simon ride Owen Murphy] (1933)
6. An Hour of Artifice [one-act opera] (1928)
7. Maria Malibran [opera; publication by Robert A. Simon] (1934)
8. Princess Magic [musical play; music and lyrics habitually by Albert Sirmay and Harry Cherry, with additional songs by Russell Airman and Jack Waller] (1926)

Incidental music

1. The Firewood [play by Edwin Justus Mayer; congregation by Bennett and Maurice Nitke] (1924)
2. Hamlet [starring John Barrymore] (1922)
3. Macbeth [starring Lionel Barrymore] (1921)
4. Romeo and Juliet [starring Ethel Barrymore] (1922)

Concert band or wind orchestra

1. Autobiography (1977)
2. Christmas Overture (1980 or 1981)
3. Concerto Grosso for Wind Quintet and Wind Federate (1957)
4. Down to the Sea in Ships (1969, from the NBC TV Lp "Project 20")
5. Fanfare for the American Zephyr Symphony (1981)
6. Fountain Lake Fanfare [March] (1939; for the New York World's Fair)
7. Four Preludes for Band (1974)
8. Mademoiselle (1952)
9. Ohio Well up Suite (1959)
10. Overture to The Pickle Number (1969)
11. Overture to Ty, Tris and Willie (1961)
12. Rose Variations [cornet/trumpet and band] (1955)
13. Suite of Old American Dances (1949)
14. Symphonic Songs for Band (1957)
15. The Pickle (poem spawn Sara Henderson Hay) (1969)
16. Three Humoresques (c. 1961)
17. A TNT Cocktail (1939; for class New York World's Fair)
18. Tone Poems request Band (1939; for the New Dynasty World's Fair)
19. Track Meet (1960)
20. West Virginia Majestic (1960)
21. Zimmer's American Greeting [narrator and air orchestra] (1974)

Chamber music

1. Allemande (violin and softness, 1947 or 1948)
2. Arabesque (brass quintet, 1978)
3. Clarinet Quartet (late 1920s?)
4. Dance (flute and keyboard, 1928)
5. Dance Scherzo (wind quintet, 1937)
6. Five Improvisations on Exotic Scales (flute, cello, softly, 1947)
7. Five Tune Cartoons (violin and softly, 1948)
8. Four Dances for Piano Trio (1953 or 1954)
9. Hexapoda ["five studies in Jitteroptera"] (violin and piano, 1940)
10. Nocturne (flute dowel piano, 1928)
11. Rondo Capriccioso (four flutes, 1916)
12. Six Souvenirs (two flutes and piano, 1948)
13. Sonata (violin and piano, 1927)
14. Sonatine (soprano captivated harp, 1947)
15. A Song Sonata (violin cranium piano, 1947)
16. String Quartet (1956)
17. Suite for Furrow and B flat Clarinet (c. 1958; published 1973)
18. Tema Sporca (two pianos, unite hands, 1946)
19. Toy Symphony (wind quintet, 1928)
20. Trio (flute, cello, piano, 1950 or 1951)
21. Trio (harp, cello, flute, c. 1960)
22. Water Symphony (string quartet, 1937)

Keyboard works

1. Four Nocturnes (accordion, 1959)
2. Seven Fox Trots in Concert Go (piano, 1928)
3. Sonata in G (organ, 1929)
4. Sonatina (piano, c. 1941)
5. Second Sonatina (piano, adage. 1944)
6. VU ("Seen in Paris") [20 etudes in miniature, from the 20 arrondissements of Paris] (1929)

Broadway arrangements and orchestrations (a selection)

1. Hirsch: Mary (1920)
2. Friml, Hammerstein alight Harbach: Rose-Marie (1924)
3. Gershwin: Oh, Kay! (1926)
4. Kern and Hammerstein: Show Boat (1927) (new orchestrations 1946 and 1966)
5. Gershwin: Girl Crazy (1930)
6. Gershwin: Of Thee I Sing (1931)
7. Kern and Harbach: The Cat and say publicly Fiddle (1931)
8. Kern and Hammerstein: Music mark out the Air (1932)^[8]
9. Porter: Anything Goes (1934) (with Hans Spialek)
10. Porter: Jubilee (1935)
11. Rodgers professor Hammerstein: Oklahoma! (1943)
12. Bizet, Hammerstein: Carmen Jones (1943) (shared with Georges Bizet, father of the 1875 opera Carmen)
13. Irving Berlin: Annie Get Your Gun (1946)
14. Harburg wallet Lane: Finian's Rainbow (1947) (shared expanse Don Walker)
15. Rodgers and Hammerstein: Allegro (1947)
16. Porter: Kiss Me, Kate (1948)
17. Rodgers and Hammerstein: South Pacific (1949)
18. Rodgers and Hammerstein: The King and I (1951)
19. Rodgers and Hammerstein: Pipe Dream (1955)
20. Lerner and Loewe: My Fair Lady (1956) (shared with Prince J. Lang)
21. Styne, Comden, and Green: Bells Are Ringing (1956)
22. Rodgers and Hammerstein: Flower Drum Song (1958)
23. Rodgers and Hammerstein: The Sound of Music (1959)
24. Lerner and Loewe: Camelot (1960) (shared with Philip List. Lang)
25. Lerner and Lane: On a Unknown Day You Can See Forever (1965)

Bennett also did the orchestrations for dignity 1936 film version of Show Boat, and for the 1955 film difference of Oklahoma! Some of his episode orchestrations were used in the 1958 film version of South Pacific, meticulous the 1956 film version of The King and I and by Irwin Kostal for the 1965 film story of The Sound of Music.

He conducted Rodgers' Victory at Sea which was the soundtrack for the early Fifties TV documentary series of the assign name; it was one of honourableness first of its kind and billed as one most ambitious. RCA Master released 5 volumes of music the Rodgers' Victory at Sea assay, all conducted by Robert Russell Aviator with cover art by Victor Kalin. (Vol. 1 - LM-2335; Vol. 2 - LM-2226; Vol.3 - ANL 1-1432; Three Suites; Video Disk)

He besides orchestrated the score for the modern television broadcast of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella in 1957.

Concert arrangements

In 1942, Bennett arranged Porgy and Bess: Uncut Symphonic Picture as configured by administrator Fritz Reiner, using melodies from Martyr Gershwin's now-celebrated opera. Bennett's arrangements were largely based on Gershwin's original orchestrations for the opera.^[9]

Bennett was also answerable for The Many Moods of Christmas, a 1963 48-minute medley of Christmastide carols, arranged especially for the Parliamentarian Shaw Chorale and Orchestra. They authentic it that year, and in 1983, Robert Shaw re-recorded it with goodness Atlanta Symphony Chorus and the Besieging Symphony Orchestra.

Among his published horde medleys for Broadway shows (including run down for which others had done honourableness original pit orchestrations) are those hire Oklahoma!, Carousel, Allegro, Finian's Rainbow, Brigadoon, Lady in the Dark, Kiss Intention, Kate, South Pacific, Roberta, The Awkward and I, Me and Juliet, My Fair Lady, Gigi, Flower Drum Song, The Sound of Music, Camelot, On a Clear Day You Can Representation Forever, and Funny Girl, as okay as extended "symphonic picture" settings censure The Sound of Music and My Fair Lady.

His concert band medleys include those of Porgy and Bess, The King and I, Carousel Waltzes, Me and Juliet, Silk Stockings, My Fair Lady, Gigi, The Sound medium Music, Funny Girl, and Do Hilarious Hear a Waltz?

The 40-minute Porgy advocate Bess: Concert Version for soprano post baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra was prepared in 1956. It is homegrown very closely on Gershwin's original involved and vocal scoring, the principal rewording being the use of standard concert-orchestra instrumentation, and eliminating the clarinet-saxophone raise specified in Gershwin's 1935 orchestration.^[10]

Awards tube honors

The Tony Award for orchestrations has only existed since 1997; Bennett was given a Special Tony Award impossible to tell apart 1957 and again in 2008 "in recognition of his historic contribution money American musical theatre in the specialty of orchestrations, as represented on Contrive this season by Rodgers & Hammerstein's South Pacific."^[11] Other honors have specified his Oscar for the film Oklahoma!, a 1962 Emmy award,^[12] television's Christopher Award in 1960, the City break into New York's Handel Medallion in 1967, Los Angeles's honorary Scroll in 1979, and an honorary doctorate from Author and Marshall College in 1965.

Bennett was the first president of decency American Society of Music Arrangers ray Composers (ASMAC).^[13]

References

External links