Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is a "written-out" jazz-in-concert hall composition written by Leonard Bernstein for a jazz ensemble, which features a solo clarinet.
The title points to the union of classical music and jazz: Prelude (first movement) and Fugue (second movement) —both baroque forms— are followed immediately without a pause by a series of “riffs” (third movement), which is a jazz idiom for a repeated and short melodic figure.
It features:
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Prelude, Fugue and Riffs is a "written-out" jazz-in-concert hall composition written by Leonard Bernstein for a jazz ensemble, which features a solo clarinet.
The title points to the union of classical music and jazz: Prelude (first movement) and Fugue (second movement) —both baroque forms— are followed immediately without a pause by a series of “riffs” (third movement), which is a jazz idiom for a repeated and short melodic figure.
It features:
Completed in 1949 for Woody Herman's big band as part of a series of commissioned works —that already included Stravinsky's Ebony Concerto— it was never performed by Herman as the Thundering Herd had disbanded and would reform only 15 years later.
Instead, it received its premiere as part of Bernstein's Omnibus television show, "The World of Jazz" on October 16, 1955, with Benny Goodman —Leonard's Tanglewood neighbour and friend since the 1940's— as the soloist and to whom the work is now dedicated.
In 1952 Bernstein revised the score from its...
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