From: midkiff@public.BTR.COM (Neil E. Midkiff  midkiff@btr.com)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: Gershwin
Date: 17 Aug 92 04:49:50 GMT
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM

In article <1992Aug16.083331.6996@riogrande.cs.tcu.edu> 
viscaino@wichita.cs.tcu.edu (Ben Viscaino) writes:
>I am interested in knowing if anyone is aware of specific CDs for George
>Gershwin where he actually played piano.  All the CDs I've seen seem to
>have a different pianist.  I would like to find some original works.
>I especially would like some versions of Rhapsody in Blue to include the
>live version at the Aeolian Hall (1924?).

Well, you can't quite get the Aeolian Hall performance; it wasn't recorded
as far as I have been able to find.  But there is a 1924 acoustic recording
with Gershwin, Paul Whiteman, and his concert orchestra; it was recorded at
the Victor studio in Camden NJ on 10/10/24.  ("Acoustic" means pre-
microphone technology, with a big horn concentrating the sound waves onto
a diaphragm to which the record-cutting needle was mechanically attached.)

There's also a 1927 electrical (i.e. microphone/amplifier/record-cutter)
recording, also for Victor in Camden on April 21, 1927, with the same 
performers.

Both of these are on a 2-disc set from Pearl (GEMM CDS 9483) titled 
"George Gershwin plays George Gershwin".  Also included: four songs with
Fred and Adele Astaire singing to George's playing (London, 1926), eight
of Gershwin's piano solo improvisations on his show tunes (London, 1926),
two more of these, plus the Andante of the Rhapsody in piano solo version and
the Three Preludes for Piano (London, 1928).  [That's the first disc!]

On the second disc: An American in Paris (Victor, 1929) with Nat Shilkret
conducting the Victor Symphony Orchestra, with Gershwin on piano and celeste;
eight selections from Porgy and Bess "recorded under the supervision of the
composer" (Victor, 1936), and two transcriptions from a radio broadcast of
9 November 1933, in which George plays the third movement of the Concerto in F
and a song medley with chorus and orchestra of I got rhythm and Of thee I sing.

---
More rare recordings are on Musicmasters 5062-2-C "Gershwin performs Gershwin".
Three radio shows from 1932 and 1934 are included.  Also are a couple of
rehearsal recordings, intended for Gershwin's own study use, with George
conducting.  One from 1931 is the first "tryout" of the Second Rhapsody; the
other is a rehearsal of Porgy and Bess selections from 1935.

These aren't quite as clean-sounding as the commercial recordings on the Pearl
set but are all fascinating.

---
You may also want to get recordings of player pianos playing piano rolls
cut by Gershwin.  Klavier KCD-11001 is one good collection of these; it has
the piano solo version of the Rhapsody in Blue plus eight show tunes by
Gershwin, as well as George playing songs by Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and
others.

A cute trick was performed by Michael Tilson Thomas and the Columbia Jazz
Band in the 1970's.  A copy of the Rhapsody piano roll was edited ("pasting
over" the holes corresponding to the orchestra parts transcribed into the
piano solo arrangement) so as to have a piano roll of just the solo piano
part; Tilson Thomas then conducted the band to follow the piano roll
playback.  The result is on CBS Masterworks MK 42240.

---
I hope you'll enjoy these as much as I have.

-Neil