The third “goodie” for September is program 17 in the Duke Ellington series broadcasted by the Danish Radio in the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s.

As usual, it is available in the ”Goodies of the Month” section of the DESS Lobby (DESS-rummet).

The program was broadcasted on March 22, 1985 and the presenter is Erik Wiedeman.

It is – like the following broadcast on March 29, 1985 – entirely devoted to the music of the ballett “The River”. There will be a separate article about this ballett on the website in November.

Wiedeman has chosen the music to make it possible to follow how the music for the different scenes (or movements) were developed by Ellington. The program gives (or was meant to give) both piano versions and full orchestral versions of the music for three of the scenes of the ballett.

The broadcast starts with the orchestral version of “The Giggling Rapids” (aka “Grap”) recorded on June 3, 1973. It is the fourth movement of the suite.

It then moves on to two piano versions of “The River”. The first one recorded on May 11 has an extra piano line dubbed in. It is kept also in the second version recorded two weeks later when Joe Benjamin, bass was added. “The River” is the opening and closing movement of the suite.

Then we hear two versions of “The Run” – a piano version from May 11, 1970 and an orchestral one from May 25, 1970. “Rune” is the second movement of the suite.

Next in the broadcast is what apparently was meant to be piano and orchestral versions of “The Meander” but the piano one is actually “The Lake” (movement 5). The mistake was corrected in broadcast n:o 18.

The broadcast ends with three versions of “The Giggling Rapids” – first a piano one from May 11, 1970, then an orchestral one from May 25, 1970 and finally another orchestral version from June 15, 1970. As Wiedeman says in the program, this could be considered as the “definitive” version of “The Giggling Rapids”.