Previous posts for June 15th are found here: Edvard Grieg (2019), David Rose (2020), and Edvard Grieg; Janet Lennon (2021)
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Robert Russell Bennett (15 June 1894 – 18 August 1981) was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals.
Compare and Contrast
Robert Russell Bennett found the dichotomy between his serious compositions and his arranging work to be a lifelong struggle. – Wikipedia
Though Broadway shows of other men
That Robert Russell Bennett scored
Were successful,
That concert music from his pen
Was soon discarded and ignored
Was distressful.
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What an interesting perspective! Mr. Bennett trusted to posterity to decide whether his concert pieces would have any permanence, and so things go. YouTube permits us to survey the wind band world---where "important new works" fall out of fashion very quickly---and a couple of Bennett pieces are getting played regularly worldwide, which isn't too bad. Me, I'd be happy to have had Stokowski and Reiner leading premieres of my work while alive, and Heifetz recording a pair of my violin pieces. Thanks for remembering him on his birthday!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. In the context of this humor blog I often over-simplify a situation for the sake of what I hope is humor or facetiousness. I often rely on the generally perceived opinion even when it is, well, not quite accurate. It is obvious that Bennett has had great success especially in wind music, and has be no means disappeared from the musical memory. (On a related note, I once had to point out a card catalogue error at a major city library, where they had confused Robert Russell and Richard Rodney Bennett!)
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