Such Sweet Thunder |
Manuscript page of the Hamlet section of Such Sweet Thunder. Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Duke Ellington conducting during the recording session for Such Sweet Thunder. © Don Hunstein.
Written in 1957, Duke Ellington’s masterful jazz suite Such Sweet Thunder not only takes its name from Shakespeare (“such sweet thunder” is a line from A Midsummer Night’s Dream), but its themes and topics, too. The suite’s twelve sections include eleven instrumental portraits of characters from Shakespeare, followed by a final piece evoking Shakespeare himself. Working with his long-time collaborator Billy Strayhorn, Ellington created the suite soon after he and his band appeared at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario.