The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-07-12

man, the jazz band conductor who rode to fame with Gershwin and and the Rhapsody in Blue, joined the conductors of symphony or- chestras, classical composers tin- pan alley tune smiths, operatic singers and blues crooners in mourning the man who was con- sidered one of the great composers of the generation.
 Gershwin Sandwiched between competitions for the musical mos vies and the musical comedy stage, serious composition of artistic pre- tensions which are played through out the world,
 Best Known Ills Rhapsody
 The best known of these was his Rhapsody. Ills most recent was the opera, porgy and BeSS, Others wer concerto for plano and full orchestra in the key of P and an American in Paris, an orchestral tone poem. Ills lighter compost tions included hundreds of songs for movies and stage, and many inuaical comedies, the best known being, of Thee Sing.
 As Is true following the death of all great artists, critics today were husiiy appraislng the permanent value of Gershwin's music. Olin pownes, critic of the New York Times, coneluded "A new step was taken by dershwIn for American music, 6 step that more pretentious composers were unable to execute. The sum of his achievement will make him live long in the records Of American music"
 Unknown Until 1924
 Until 1924, few, outside of the initiates of Broadway had ever heard of George dershwin, That year Whiteman, dance band con- ductor, decided to take Jazz off the dance floor into the concert hall, m Aeolian hall with on augmented jaEz orchestra, he faced an audience of the musically sophisticated. A voting man of delicate features sat down at the piano, Ills fingers xapped out the plaintive opening cadences, etheral yet earthy, Of the Rhapsody in Blue. From that in- etant QerShwin, the 25 yeNrs old was of the elect.
 oershwin has been compared te Stephen Poster, the greatest Of American composers, in the utter lack of 6 musical background. Fos- ter never had c musical education of any sort and he came of non- musical family. dershwin had practically no musical education beyond a few childhood plano less aoas and what he learned by eX- porimentation There had not been 50 far as is known, any musicians in his family.
 Born In Brooklyn
 HIS mother and father were Rus sian Jewish immigrants who had married in New York few years before he was born in a Brooklyn kenement district. A few years la Ter the family moved to Grand street, In the lower East Side of < Manhattan and there Gershwin }rew Up.
 He worried his parents so that when his father earned a little moro than usual when he was l2, they bought him & second hand oiano. Gershwin took to 1t pas- Sionately and his mother squeezed xnoney from her household allow ances to pay a woman 50 cents an hour to teach him. He entered the commercial high school at IA be- cause his father thought he would be a merchant and trader as he had been. He was a dull pupil and uflit after two years. To make mu- EIc his career. He was then l6 and entered tin pan alley as song E aIuRger. At 20 he wrote his first musical comedy. One year later he Mas under contract to George White and wrote the scores for five suc- cessive scandals" Then the Rhap- Sody in Blue and fame.
 Porgy And Bess Opera
 Gershwin's opera, Porgy and Hess, was produced by the New york theater guild and was en- Enthusiastically received.
 The general public still huns one ol its songs, T Got Plenty oi Ncthin'." It was based upon Du- bose Rewards novel, Porgy, story Nl South Carolina Negroes, anc Hayward and Ira Gershwin colla- horated on the libretto.
 His concerto in F was written for the New York Symphony society ir 1925 and first played by that or ehestra under the baton of Dr. Wal Ser Damrosch. He wrote an Amer hran in Paris in 1928 and Cuban Mgarture ia 1882 for the New York
 Ilharmonic orchestra.
 UGSHhWin never married. He composed constantly and his total 6f1duction amounted to hundreds