Duke Ellington's Symphonic Visions

Duke Ellington’s Symphonic Visions, the culmination of a decade-long study of Ellington’s compositions for the symphony orchestra by author Luca Bragalini, is the first book entirely dedicated to Ellington’s symphonic music. Duke Ellington’s Symphonic Visions unfolds across five chapters, each dedicated to a distinct composition, concluding in a deeper understanding of Ellington’s motivations for recording “La Scala, She Too Pretty to Be Blue” amidst numerous musical and cultural challenges. Later chapters, six and seven, examine a posthumous symphonic ballet sketched by Ellington on his deathbed and the remarkable discovery of a previously unpublished score titled Celebration.

Through personal interviews with the musicians involved in the Milan recording session and immersive archival research, some appearing in English for the first time, Bragalini embarks on a meticulous journey that traverses Europe, Canada, and Harlem. Published in English with the collaboration of the International Center for American Music, Duke Ellington’s Symphonic Visions transcends specialist discourse by offering insights into Ellington’s symphonic repertoire that illuminate his political ideologies, the Harlem Renaissance, and the role of religion in the African American community. Illustrated with unpublished photographs by a prominent postwar Italian photojournalist who captured Ellington’s collaboration with the Orchestra Sinfonica della Scala and interdisciplinary in nature, the book is an engaging read and integrates musicology with art history, literature, urban history, photography, and sociology to unravel the enigmatic persona of Ellington and shed light on a previously obscure aspect of his oeuvre.