Synopsis

On today’s date in 1946, Igor Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto was premiered at Carnegie Hall by the Woody Herman jazz band. It was Stravinsky’s most extended foray into the world of jazz — and he was a bit worried how it would turn out.

A few months before the premiere, Stravinsky wrote to Nadia Boulanger in Paris that the new score would be tailor-made for Herman’s jazz band — and the two sides of a 78-rpm record.

“I am composing a short concerto for the Woody Herman Band,” Stravinsky wrote.

“Herman will record the music under my supervision,” he continued, “and it will be done on two sides of one record: first side, moderato (two and a half minutes) and andante (two minutes); second side: theme and variations (three minutes). The orchestra will consist of clarinet, oboe, five saxophones, five trumpets, horn, three trombones, double bass, harp, piano, guitar and percussion. I am somewhat unnerved by my lack of familiarity with this sort of thing.”

He needn’t have worried. The fusion of the odd sonorities of Herman’s jazz band with Stravinsky’s neoclassical inclinations resulted in a work that sounds a little like a swing-era version of one of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos.

Music Played in Today's Program

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971): ‘Ebony Concerto’; Benny Goodman, clarinet; Columbia Jazz Combo; Igor Stravinsky, cond. Sony 64136