Editing Vernon Duke (section)

==Career==
In 1924, Dukelsky returned to Europe. In [[Paris]], he received a [[commission (art)|commission]] from [[Sergei Diaghilev|Serge Diaghilev]] to compose a [[ballet]].<ref name="LarkinGE"/> Dukelsky's first theatrical production, ''Zephyr and Flora'', was staged in the 1925 season of [[Ballets Russes]], with [[choreography]] by [[Léonide Massine]] and [[scenography]] by [[Georges Braque]], to great critical acclaim. In a review of musical novelties of the season, [[Sergei Prokofiev]] described it as full of "superior melodies, very well designed, harmonically beautiful and not too 'modernist'."{{citation needed|date=August 2021}} Prokofiev was as impressed with the young talent as Diaghilev was, and soon the composers became close friends. They frequently saw each other until Prokofiev returned to the [[Soviet Union]] in 1938; they continued to correspond until 1946. Dukelsky's First Symphony was premiered by [[Sergei Koussevitzky|Serge Koussevitzky]] and his orchestra in 1928 in Paris on the same bill as excerpts from Prokofiev's ''[[The Fiery Angel (opera)|The Fiery Angel]]''. Some of Dukelsky's and Prokofiev's compositions of the 1930s bear evidence of their musical dialogue.{{citation needed |date= September 2022}}

In the late 1920s, Dukelsky divided his time between Paris, where his more classical works were performed, and [[London]], where he composed numbers for musical comedies under his pen name Vernon Duke.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> In 1929, he returned to the United States with the intention of settling in the country permanently.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> He composed and published much serious music, but devoted greater efforts to establishing himself on [[Broadway theatre|Broadway]]. Duke's songs "[[April in Paris (song)|April in Paris]]" (1932), "[[Autumn in New York (song)|Autumn in New York]]" (1934), "I Like the Likes of You" (1934), "Water Under the Bridge" (1934), and "[[I Can't Get Started]]" (1936) were 1930s hits.<ref name="LarkinGE"/>

The support and devotion of Serge Koussevitzky, who published Dukelsky's [[chamber music]] and conducted his orchestral scores, helped him develop his classical works. Dukelsky's [[concerto]] for [[piano]], orchestra, and [[soprano]] [[obbligato]], titled ''Dédicaces'' (1935–1937), was premièred by Koussevitzky and the [[Boston Symphony Orchestra]] in January 1939 in New York. His oratorio, ''The End of St. Petersburg'', was premiered a year earlier by [[MacDowell Club#MacDowell Chorus|Schola Cantorum]] and the [[New York Philharmonic]] under [[Hugh Ross (musician)|Hugh Ross]]. In 1937, the composer was asked to complete Gershwin's last score, a [[Film score|soundtrack]] to a [[Technicolor]] extravaganza ''[[The Goldwyn Follies]]'', to which he contributed two [[parody]] ballets choreographed by [[George Balanchine]], and the song "Spring Again". In 1939, Dukelsky became an American citizen and took Vernon Duke as his legal name. Duke's greatest success came a year later, with the Broadway musical ''Cabin in the Sky'' (1940), choreographed by [[George Balanchine]] and performed by an [[African American|all-black]] cast at the [[Martin Beck Theater]] in New York.<ref name="LarkinGE"/>

===Military service===
Between 1942 and 1944, he served in the [[United States Coast Guard|US Coast Guard]]. While in service, he discovered [[Sid Caesar]], a [[saxophone]] player in the Coast Guard Band, and wrote a touring show for the Coast Guard called ''[[Tars & Spars]]''. He also conceived some of his finest music in the classical tradition, including a Cello Concerto (commissioned by [[Gregor Piatigorsky]]) and a Violin Concerto.

===Third Symphony===
His Third Symphony (1946) was dedicated to the memory of Koussevitzky's wife, Natalie. Over the years, Serge and Natalie Koussevitzky, Dukelsky's devoted supporters, had become his surrogate family. When Dukelsky's mother died, in 1942, the composer took the conductor's refusal to commission the work with great bitterness. The dedication was revoked and the relationship soured.

In 1946, Duke left the United States for France, where he continued his double career of being a classical composer and a songwriter (now setting to music the texts of French lyricists).<ref name="LarkinGE"/> By 1948, the composer was back in America. He moved from New York to [[California]], where he spent his last decades writing songs, film and theater scores, chamber music, poetry in Russian and polemical articles and memoirs in English.<ref name="LarkinGE"/> On October 30, 1957, he married singer Kay McCracken. His final appearance on Broadway came less than two weeks later with the two songs and incidental music he wrote for the [[Helen Hayes]] show, [[Jean Anouilh]]'s ''Time Remembered'' (1940) (French title: ''[[Léocadia]]'') which ran for 247 performances. He continued to try to mount Broadway musicals during the last decade of his life, including two shows that closed during tryouts, and one that was never produced.

===Later works===
As a classical composer, Dukelsky used the same musical language as his modernist contemporaries [[Sergei Prokofiev]], [[Arthur Lourié]], and, to a lesser extent, [[Igor Stravinsky]]. His harmonies, however, were highly original. As a songwriter and author of theatrical and film music, his work was close to [[George Gershwin|that of George Gershwin]] and [[Harold Arlen]], but he developed an idiosyncratic voice of his own.