Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, performed for first time - Feb 12, 1924 - HISTORY.com Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, performed for first time Share this: Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, performed for first time Author Rhapsody In Blue, by George Gershwin, performed for first time URL Publisher A+E Networks “The audience packed a house that could have been sold out at twice the size,” wrote New York Times critic Olin Downes on February 13, 1924, of a concert staged the previous afternoon at the Aeolian Hall in New York City. Billed as an educational event, the “Experiment In Modern Music” concert was organized by Paul Whiteman, the immensely popular leader of the Palais Royal Orchestra, to demonstrate that the relatively new form of music called jazz deserved to be regarded as a serious and sophisticated art form. The program featured didactic segments intended to make this case—segments with titles like “Contrast: Legitimate Scoring vs. Jazzing.” After 24 such stem-winders, the house was growing restless.

Then a young man named George Gershwin, then known only as a composer of Broadway songs, seated himself at the piano to accompany the orchestra in the performance of a brand new piece of his own composition, called Rhapsody In Blue. “It starts with an outrageous cadenza of the clarinet,” wrote Downes of the now-famous two-and-a-half-octave glissando that makes Rhapsody in Blue as instantly recognizable as Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. “It has subsidiary phrases, logically growing out of it…often metamorphosed by devices of rhythm and instrumentation.” The music critic of the New York Times was in agreement with Whiteman’s basic premise: “This is no mere dance-tune set for piano and other instruments,” he judged. “This composition shows extraordinary talent, just as it also shows a young composer with aims that go far beyond those of his ilk.” It may be true that George Gershwin had always hoped to transcend the category of popular music, but the piece he used to accomplish that feat was put together very hastily.

Just five weeks prior to the “Experiment in Modern Music” concert, Gershwin had not committed to writing a piece for it, when his brother Ira read a report in the New York Tribune stating that George was “at work on a jazz concerto” for the program. Thus painted into a corner, George Gershwin pieced Rhapsody In Blue together as best he could in the time available, leaving his own piano part to be improvised during the world premiere. Rhapsody would, of course, come to be regarded as one of the most important American musical works of the 20th century. It would also open the door for a whole generation of “serious” composers—from Copland to Brecht—to draw on jazz elements in their own important works. Related Videos George Gershwin — Rhapsody in Blue — Listen, watch, download and discover music for free at Last.fm gershwin Rhapsody in Blue is a musical composition by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band written in 1924, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects.

The composition was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé three times, in 1924, in 1926, and finally in 1946. The piece received its premiere in a concert entitled An Experiment in Modern Music, which was held on 12 February 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York, by Paul Whiteman and his band with Gershwin playing… read more Similar Tracks Classical Notes - George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue", Classical Classics, Peter Gutmann Composers' own records have unique value. More clearly than verbal descriptions or even written notation, they document the creator's conception, inspire understanding and guide further interpretation. Among the most essential of these is George Gershwin's brilliant 1924 record of his Rhapsody in Blue, which preserves the world premiere of one of the most popular works in the entire repertoire – and in a performance strikingly different from those to which we're accustomed. Here is Gershwin himself playing the piano solo in his own peerless style, accompanied by the musicians for whom he wrote the work.

If only we could transcend conjecture to hear how Beethoven played his own revolutionary piano sonatas or how Wagner conducted his own tradition-shattering operas! Gershwin was born Jacob Gershvitz in 1898 to Russian immigrant parents in Brooklyn, where he was immersed in a vast range of music. He left high school for Tin Pan Alley and worked three years as a pianist plugging sheet music for Remick's music publishers. Quickly absorbing both the writing and performing styles of his time, Gershwin moonlighted as a vocal accompanist and dabbled in composition. A mere 20 years old, he soared to fame with “Swanee,” a mega-hit for Al Jolson. Within the next few years the flow of songs continued, including several Broadway musicals. Apparently, at one point Gershwin had mentioned his desire to write a serious piece incorporating jazz and pop elements to Paul Whiteman, whose dance band was among the most popular in America. Nothing more came of this until January 3, 1924, when Whiteman announced an eclectic concert to take place at New York City's Aeolian Hall, with the bold purpose of displaying modern American music in all its varieties.

A self-portrait Whiteman went on to proclaim that Gershwin was at work on a jazz concerto which would receive its premiere at the event. This was news to Gershwin, who read about it in the next day's paper along with the rest of the world. Gershwin protested that he had nothing in progress except a new show and was headed to Boston for a tryout. Worse yet, the Whiteman concert was slated for February 12! Despite the confusion, Whiteman apparently persuaded Gershwin to accept his commission. Gershwin later recalled that he formed the concept of the piece on his way to Boston, inspired in part by the rhythmic noises of the train ride. Upon returning to his New York apartment, he produced a two-piano score to be orchestrated by Whiteman's top arranger. Best remembered for his glitzy but trifling Grand Canyon Suite, Ferde Grofé knew the special talents of the Whiteman musicians and was uniquely qualified to customize the score to maximize its impact. Thus, the famous opening glissando was tailored for Russ Gorman, Whiteman's first-chair clarinetist. The instrumentation was completed barely a week before the scheduled premiere.

Due to the rushed circumstances and his other commitments, Gershwin had no time to write out the solo passages, which he played from memory (and, great improviser that he was, probably embellished considerably). Gershwin's understanding with Whiteman was that he would nod when his solos were over and the next orchestral portion was to begin. The concert was long and tedious, with Gershwin's piece nearly at the end. While critical reaction was mixed, the audience was thrilled and the work was recognized immediately as something new and excitingly different. Even now, with the vantage of retrospect, the Rhapsody in Blue eludes convenient classification. Is it classical music with pop elements, or jazz with serious pretensions? Just what type of musical creature is the Rhapsody in Blue? From the very outset, commentators have struggled to describe it. Gershwin had declared his intention as breaking down misconceptions about the limitations of jazz. But such terminology is confusing – this wasn't the same spontaneously improvised “jazz” that his contemporaries Louis Armstrong, Jellyroll Morton and Bix Biederbecke were creating.

Rather, it was a mainstream version filtered into dance arrangements that stretched conventional rules with a novel edge of some harmonic flights, rhythmic variation and emphatic playing. Whiteman's claim to have been “The King of Jazz” must have gotten a good sneer from real jazz musicians. Far more cogent is John Struble's observation that Gershwin approached all music as a songwriter. His strength was as one of the great instinctive melodists of all time. Although he did receive some formal musical training, his abiding weakness was structure. Thus, notwithstanding a great love for the piece, Leonard Bernstein disparaged the Rhapsody in Blue as “not a composition at all [but] a string of … terrific tunes … stuck together with a thin paste of flour and water.” Arthur Schwartz agreed, calling the development and transitions “more intuition than tuition.” All Gershwin's works discount traditional development and proceed linearly from one event to the next. The appealing result, as Alex North observed, is a natural, sincere expression which, as James Lyons noted, manifests the confidence and nervous energy of the “Roaring Twenties.” Perhaps the most reliable measure of the Rhapsody's originality is that it had no direct descendants.

Indeed, subsequent attempts to meld pop and serious music always seem awkward. Yet, its fame and impact inspired many serious composers, including Ravel, Stravinsky and Milhaud, to explore jazz and stirred countless pop composers to dabble in classical forms. But all of this lay well in the future, a future which Gershwin, who died at age 38 of a brain tumor, would not live to see. In the meantime, the months following the Whiteman premiere saw many more performances, including two at Carnegie Hall. And then for the young and daring composer came a terrific break – the opportunity to record his sensation for Victor, or at least as much of it as could fit onto a 2-sided 12-inch record. The session took place on June 10 and featured the same Whiteman players who had been at Aeolian Hall, including Gershwin himself at the piano. Although the second half is heavily cut, the performance captured that day fully regenerates the exhilaration that elated the first audience. The pacing is brisk and at times even frantic, the dynamics extreme, the playing biting, tense and driven.

There is not a bit of the gushy romanticism heard on so many bloated modern interpretations of the piece (in part because they use Grofé's later full orchestration). Even the shrill, brassy, lean orchestration seems an ideal match for the sonic limitations of the acoustic process, a purely mechanical recording system in which musical vibrations were gathered by a horn and engraved by a stylus directly on a wax master. This is an ideal realization – brash and arrogant, just the impression we would expect from the young composer who had turned the world on its head by daring to synthesize “jazz” and the classics. The opening glissando is lumpy, but effectively sets the aural stage for the spontaneity to come. Gershwin's solos are so free-flowing as to sound as if they truly did arise on the spot. The band responds with biting sarcasm, as if to mock the pretension of a formal concert setting. The entire performance has a rousing impromptu tone, as if to proclaim the passionate commitment of the original ensemble infusing the score with the very breath of creation. The sheer sincerity of the record is simply overwhelming.

It's currently on budget Naxos CD 120510 and BMG 62376. Gershwin himself left us two other performances. A comparably abridged 1927 remake with Whiteman's band (but not Whiteman himself, who stormed out of the session after arguing with Gershwin over tempo) used the new electrical recording process of microphones and amplifiers (also on BMG 62376) and comes close but doesn't quite recapture the fresh authority of the original. A full-length 1925 piano roll (Nonesuch 79287) thickens the texture to sketch in the orchestral parts (even though it may have “cheated” a bit by extending Gershwin's own considerable virtuosity through extra hand-punched holes). Of other performances, the most compelling have no pretense of manicured refinement, but follow Gershwin's own cue of free-wheeling impulse.

We remember Oscar Levant primarily as an insufferable character in the MGM musicals The Band Wagon and An American in Paris (in which he whimsically dreams that he and multiple clones play the finale of Gershwin's Concerto in F). More significant than his acting, though, was his dedicated service as a Gershwin aide and accompanist. Thus, Levant's brisk and highly personal 1945 reading of the Rhapsody with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra (CBS 42574) is second only to Gershwin's in authenticity. When first released on LP, the album bore the “CL” prefix used for pop albums rather than the “ML” classical prefix, a clear recognition of its crossover appeal. Another striking performance comes from a most unlikely source – that straight-laced classicist, Arturo Toscanini . During World War II, Toscanini pushed the performance of American music as a patriotic gesture. While he had no feeling for the pop language that infuses Gershwin's work, to his credit he made no attempt to mimic an alien style.

Rather, he approached Gershwin with the same fierce severity as any other classical piece, tearing into the accompaniment with dramatic gusto while yielding to idiomatic solos by a young and intrepid Earl Wild. (Benny Goodman, a celebrity recruited to play the opening clarinet solo, muffs a disastrous climactic note.) The 1942 broadcast (on Hunt CD 534) is vivid and committed, a fascinating if perverse contrast to the usual readings. The elements missing from Toscanini's rigorous interpretation attest that the essence of Gershwin lay well beyond the limits of serious music alone. Of the dozens of modern versions, Leonard Bernstein , conducting the Columbia Symphony Orchestra from the keyboard, manages to capture much of the lean vigor and jaunty attitude of Gershwin's original and has been constantly around in various incarnations since its release in 1959 (currently on Sony CD 42264 or 63086, each paired appropriately with Grofé's Grand Canyon Suite).

(Bernstein's sharply articulated 1983 remake is with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, with which he had given his first professional performance of the Rhapsody in 1944 – DG 410025.) Pianist/conductor Morton Gould, who worked with Gershwin, adds lots of personal inflection to his spirited 1955 account (BMG 62376). More conventional are the fine remake by Earl Wild with the vastly underrated Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops (BMG 68796 or 68109) and the sassy outing by Jerome Lowenthal with the Utah Symphony under Maurice Abravanel (Vanguard 10017). The leisurely, lyrical and well-balanced reading by Jeffrey Siegel, with Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, permits the work's wry humor and playfulness to emerge gently (and is a superb bargain on Vox CDX-5007). Ready for more Gershwin? Encouraged by the success of the Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin produced an even more ambitious crossover work the next year.

His Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra, a full-blown three-movement concerto, was traditional in title and form, but jazzy in all its details. Its melodies were bluesy, its harmonies extended, its rhythms sharp, and its orchestration (by Gershwin himself this time) blazing. The opening phrase alone is a knockout, boldly proclaiming what lies ahead: four tympani strokes, a cymbal clash, a bass drum thud, and snare drum roll, all repeated, which leads directly into a Charleston motif – truly a concerto for people who hate concertos! My favorite realization of the Concerto in F is the extroverted account with Earl Wild at the keyboard and Arthur Fiedler conducting the Boston Pops. Gould's and Levant's performances have fine, distinctive solo work, but the latter's accompaniment by Andre Kostelanetz is pretty colorless. The Siegal/Slatkin reading is dry, witty and subtle. Each is packaged with the Rhapsody in Blue performances already noted (except for the Gould, which is only available on the original LP coupling of LM-2017).

Next from the “serious” Gershwin came An American in Paris (1928), a delightful musical souvenir of a European trip. Early in the days of the LP, its breezy tone and length marked it as a natural flip-side companion to the Rhapsody in Blue, and it has been so coupled ever since. Indeed, each of the above Bernstein, Fiedler and Slatkin readings of the Rhapsody in Blue is associated with equally fine performances of An American in Paris. But there is one standout reading that preceded LPs, played in February, 1929 by the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra led by Nathaniel Shilkret (Pearl 9483 or RCA 63276). This was the first recording of a complete Gershwin work (both the acoustic and electric Whiteman versions of the Rhapsody in Blue having been abridged) and features Gershwin playing the brief celesta passage near the middle.

(Apparently, his participation was unplanned, and was necessitated when it was realized, only once the session began, that the producer had forgotten to hire a celesta player.) The authenticity of this performance is assured, though, not only from Gershwin's unexpected presence, but by Shilkret's use of the actual taxi horns that Gershwin brought back with him from Paris and which inspired the introductory “walking” section. Over the next few years, Gershwin produced some lesser pieces, including a disappointing sequel (the Second Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra, a quarter-hour of meandering, empty sequencing without a shred of memorable melody), the rhumba-flavored Cuban Overture and the self-descriptive ‘I Got Rhythm’ Variations for Piano and Orchestra. And then came the last and most ambitious of Gershwin's classical works – Porgy and Bess, a collaboration with his lyricist brother Ira and playwright Du Bose Heyward.

Launched in 1935 as grand opera, its story of poverty, drugs and racism set in a Charleston waterfront slum was hardly the stuff of operatic tradition, and its main characters of a crippled beggar, a drug pusher and a fugitive woman were hardly apt to gain the identification of typical opera audiences. The reception of this realistic brew was mixed, and its success came eventually only in subsequent revivals which Gershwin did not live to enjoy. Gershwin supervised a set of eight selections shortly after the New York opening (on BMG 63276). Its authority is compromised somewhat by substituting for the original leads white Metropolitan Opera stars Lawrence Tibbett and Helen Jepson, but they sing superbly, only barely sounding strained with the dialect (although Jepson can't avoid rolling her &#8220r's” in the grand European manner). Several complete recordings are available, including the pioneering set produced by Goddard Lieberson for Columbia in 1953 (Sony Heritage 63322).

There's a wide choice among excerpts, including an arrangement by Morton Gould (on BMG 63276) and Catfish Row, Gershwin's own orchestral suite (included in the Slatkin Vox set), which would become Gershwin's last serious work. But Porgy and Bess has been enjoyed more for its parts than as a whole. Many of its arias and set pieces have taken flight as popular songs, including “A Woman Is a Sometime Thing,” “I Got Plenty o' Nuttin',” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” and “It Ain't Necesssarily So.” One in particular, the ravishingly beautiful first act curtain-raiser, “Summertime,” has been interpreted by artists as diverse as Miles Davis and Janis Joplin. This was the serious side of Gershwin. His other, popular, side has been popular indeed, perpetuated by the intense interest which jazz musicians have taken in his daring harmonic structures and exquisitely-wrought melodies, which have provided a wealth of material for improvisation.

Gershwin himself can be heard in splendid if confined fox-trot versions of eight show tunes, together with his Three Preludes (on Naxos 120510) and in realizations of two dozen piano rolls (on Nonesuch 79287 and 79370). A marvelous collection of lighter pieces is played authoritatively by pianist William Bolcom (coupled with Gershwin songs by Bolcom and Joan Morris on Nonesuch CD 79151). More unusual arrangements range from violinist Jascha Heifetz to the Canadian Brass. But no matter how much you hear in other hands and in more recent times, the most startling performance of them all remains that first crack at the Rhapsody in Blue. Never again would coalesce the heady thrill of creating something new and wonderful, the first marvel of acceptance by the world of serious music that the tunesmith kid from Brooklyn had joined on his own terms, and the awesome faith that the most distant artistic horizons were now his to conquer.

The compilations of historical Gershwin recordings can be confusing, so here's a quick summary: Historic Gershwin Recordings (BMG 63276, 2 CDs priced as one) – a wonderful collection, with three Rhapsodies in Blue (both the 1924 and 1927 Gershwin/Whiteman versions and the 1955 Gould), two Americans in Paris (the 1929 Shilkret and a bracing 1949 Bernstein), and the 1935 Gershwin-supervised Porgy and Bess excerpts. There's also Gould's fine half-hour Porgy and Bess orchestral suite. My only quibble is that the transfer of the acoustic Rhapsody is quite bass-deficient, although the amount of detail extracted through computer processing is remarkable.

Gershwin Plays Gershwin (Naxos 120510, budget-priced) – the 1924 Gershwin/Whiteman Rhapsody (but in a blurry transfer that perhaps better than the clean BMG one above conveys the solid sound of an acoustical record played on the actual equipment of the time), Gershwin's own 1931 broadcast of his Second Rhapsody, plus Gershwin at the keyboard playing his Preludes and eleven songs. Levant Plays Gershwin (CBS 42514, mid-priced) – Levant's fine recordings of the Rhapsody, Second Rhapsody, Piano Concerto, ‘I Got Rhythm’ Variations and Preludes. Toscanini Conducts Gershwin (Hunt CD 534) – the Rhapsody is fascinating, but a 1943 broadcast of An American in Paris is similar to, but far less well recorded than, his 1945 studio account (on RCA 60307) and his 1944 broadcast of the Piano Concerto stifles Oscar Levant with a deadly dull and wooden accompaniment.

The Complete Gershwin (Vox 5007, super-budget 2-CD set) – I'm cheating a bit, since these are late-1960s stereo recordings, and thus not really historical, but you can't find a finer set at anywhere near this price of all the above pieces plus the Cuban Overture and Catfish Row, all played wonderfully by Jeffrey Siegal, pianist, and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin. As the composer himself would have said (through his lyricist brother Ira): “Who could ask for anything more?” Enjoy! Copyright 2003 by Peter Gutmann Classical Net - Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue Listener's Guide Listener's Guide Overview According to the often-told story, having seen George Gershwin's mini-opera Blue Monday, bandleader Paul Whiteman asked the composer for an extended work to perform at a special concert to be given at the Aeolian Hall in New York. Gershwin agreed and then, in the rush of his career, forgot about it.

With roughly five weeks left before the concert, brother Ira read a newspaper article promoting the Whiteman venture with the promise of a "Berlin syncopated tone poem," a Victor Herbert suite, and a "Gershwin concerto." Ira promptly informed George, then in the middle of tryouts for a new musical. George swung into (belated) action. Still, he was handing pages to the orchestrator days before the concert and hadn't completed all of the solo part by the time of the performance. These sections he improvised, nodding to Whiteman to give the next downbeat at the appropriate time. In a program that up to that point had been pretty much of a yawn, the Rhapsody became the unqualified hit it has remained to our own day. It has been arranged to a fare-thee-well and received well over 200 recordings, and its big broad tune toward the end has been used for such things as ring tones and commercials. Incidentally, the Berlin tone poem never materialized. For a long time, critics loved to dump on Gershwin or condescend to him as naïve and untutored.

His defenders tended to come from the theater, rather than from the conservatory, although many major composers, including Schoenberg and Ravel, admired his music. Recently, Gershwin's stock has begun to rise, along with research activity within the academy. After all, Gershwin's concert music has occupied a repertory niche long after more esteemed works of the moment have disappeared. Though I'm not a big fan of the box populi argument, I nevertheless think that staying power indicates at least some inherent value. Furthermore, Rhapsody in Blue (brilliant title supplied by Ira after seeing an exhibition of paintings by Whistler) has stood as somewhat of an exception in the critical mud flung the composer's way. Writers at the time of the premiere hailed the Rhapsody for spurious reasons. Some claimed it as the first work to combine jazz and the concert hall ("Gershwin made a lady out of jazz"), when it wasn't, by a long shot. We had already had pieces by Debussy, Stravinsky, Ives, Milhaud, and others.

However, it was the piece which made the greatest impact by far and spurred many composers both in the Americas and in Europe to experiment with incorporating jazz elements into Modern concert music. Others claimed that Gershwin wrote jazz – also not correct. Of course, jazz had an extremely fluid definition in its early years. Over the years, however, this last claim and its debunking insidiously mixed with American race problems. Some accused Gershwin of some sort of intellectual theft of black culture. This charge makes no more sense than accusing Duke Ellington of stealing French culture from Debussy and Ravel or Western European music from every composer since Monteverdi. In art, material may be proprietary, but ideas and styles are not. To say that Ellington and Gershwin sound alike (which has to be the phenomenal basis behind the accusation) is obvious nonsense. Also, Rhapsody in Blue precedes the earliest known jazz extended composition. Finally, the odd notion persisted that Gershwin simply didn't know what he was doing. He studied music only haphazardly, when it suited his schedule. Yet, many passages in his music point to his learning at least something of classical procedures.

Study, and hard, Gershwin did with a number of teachers including Henry Cowell and, most extensively, with Joseph Schillinger, a pedagogue who had constructed a "mathematical" (not really) system of composition. Most of the adverse criticism stems from the fact that Gershwin never wrote a sonata movement, as if that were the way to bind a piece together that established a composer's bona fides. A remark from Henry Cowell about his teaching Gershwin counterpoint I find illuminating. Gershwin got bored with strict counterpoint and would alter things to get in a piquant harmony. In short, he treated classical procedures as means, rather than as ends, just like most other Modern composers. When talking about the Rhapsody, we must ask, which Rhapsody? The premiere version, of course, with its improvised passages, is irretrievably lost. This leaves us with the published original for piano and the Whiteman dance band or the symphonic version, both orchestrated by Whiteman arranger Ferde Grofé. The dance-band incarnation has enjoyed a relatively recent renewed interest after years of the symphonic arrangement crowding it out.

I like both but tend to think of each as its own unique thing. As I say, the main criticism against Gershwin runs that the piece is less a coherent composition than a chain of one great tune after another. Bernstein probably came up with the most widely-known and devastating version of this, contending that you could cut out whole sections and still have the Rhapsody in Blue. I'm not so sure. I can whistle to myself from memory a large chunk of the score from its opening measures, which indicates to me that somehow the piece coheres better than Bernstein claims. Furthermore, Gershwin clearly marks the piece a rhapsody, a form which shouldn't lead us to expect iron musical logic. And is one great tune after another a bug or a feature? At any rate, I hope to show that the Rhapsody isn't a random ramble, but a journey taken with a small set of themes. For timings of various sections, I will be using the classic Arthur Fiedler RCA recording with Earl Wild and the Boston Pops (61393), a benchmark account ever since it came out (relatively inexpensive as well) and my introduction to the piece at age 13.

I use the symphonic rather than the dance-band version, since I believe more people know it. I fell in love with the symphonic Rhapsody immediately and haven't fallen out yet, more than fifty years later. I don't call this performance the best recording of the Rhapsody I've heard (please don't ask me what that is: there are too many that I like and I doubt I've heard even a quarter of those available). The disc also contains front-rank accounts from the same forces of the Concerto in F, An American in Paris, and the Variations on "I Got Rhythm", so it's a bargain. Guide The work consists of several extended parts: Exposition Introduction which states and develops many of the work's major themes Episode 1, which introduces a new theme Return of opening theme Finale. Introduction 00:00 – A trill and an upward smear of notes from the solo clarinet leads to the main theme. Incidentally, Gershwin, a pianist, had originally written out each individual note of an upward run, since the individual piano keys prevent a player from producing that effect on the instrument.

The Whiteman clarinetist, Russ Gorman, was fooling around with his solo during rehearsal and came out with the smear. Gershwin heard it and told him to keep it in – a smart decision, since it grabs the listener by the ears and has immediately identified the piece ever after. The character of the main theme makes me call it "the announcement." Several smaller ideas comprise it: 00:07 – A descent along a blues scale 00:15 – a rising fourth off a trill alternating with a sequence of rising thirds 00:29 – closing idea featuring repeated notes, a "blue" seventh, and a "blue" third. 00:34 – The full orchestra takes up the announcement, and the solo piano introduces a new idea – a riff on a rise to a "blue" note (00:48). The latter idea becomes strongly associated with the announcement. This leads to an extended development of most of the themes so far. At 02:09, Gershwin slips in a quasi-pentatonic cell by the way that has larger implications later on.

A passage featuring the blues riff in the solo piano leads to the orchestra giving out the announcement, with pentatonic extension, in the first major climax of the piece (3:02). A "razz" crescendo in trumpets and trombones leads to Episode 1 03:31 – A "Latin" number in the orchestra, led by solo trumpet and characterized by repeated notes. The repeated notes turn into a transition using the closing motive from the Introduction (03:55) and a full statement of that idea with extension (04:08). Blues March 04:49 – Led by a pentatonic fragment, the orchestra strikes up a blues-y march, complete with banjo keeping time. The march transforms into a speeding train (an inspiration for the piece, incidentally) and segues into a meditation from the piano solo on the closing motive (06:03). A haunting solo horn joins in briefly at 06:45.

Return of Opening Theme and the Blues March 07:35 – This time it's the piano's turn to ruminate on the announcement, followed by mainly the solo winds of the orchestra in a humorous, off-kilter treatment, and the blues march for solo piano (08:41). Elements of the "Latin" episode enter, as well as a virtuoso passage involving syncopated octaves in the left hand. Broad Tune 10:35)– After a brief transition, Gershwin comes up with a genius theme that lifts the piece to a new level, doubly effective because totally unexpected. This theme has had a considerable life outside the Rhapsody itself. Paul Whiteman used it as his band's musical signature. United Air Lines continues to identify its brand with it. People have called the tune "Tchaikovskian," not for any technical reason that I can see, but because of its gorgeous singing quality. It builds in the orchestra, before the piano takes over (12:36 ). Cadenza 13:25 – The soloist interrupts the broad tune with a cadenza that brings back the Latin element of the first episode.

The passage features a flurry of hammered repeated notes, capped by the blue-note riff (14:02). The Latin element starts up again, but transforms into Quasi-recap 14:25 – The orchestra takes up the broad tune, this time in the guise of a "snappy number." It builds to a climax on a sharp dissonance (14:52). The piano then begins another climax on the blue-note riff (14:57). Finale (15:18) – The music reaches a climax – and how! – with the apotheosis of the repeated-note motive of the opening. The announcement comes roaring back in the full orchestra (15:47), and the piece ends grandly on the blue-note riff. Conclusions As we can hear, Gershwin has created mainly "open-ended" ideas – that is, ideas which can be joined together at either end. A "closing" one time can become an "opening" another. This allows him to recombine his thoughts in many different ways. Furthermore, there really aren't that many of these basic pieces. It's Gershwin's art that renews and transforms them in changing contexts.

As far as the large pieces of the score are concerned, they're fairly clear, rather than a jumble. Is it a "perfect piece" architecturally? Not even a rabid fan like me can claim that. The Latin episodes especially seem tacked on. On the other hand, I wouldn't want them gone. Like the most livable cities, the score hasn't been planned to within an inch of its life. It still allows you to come across odd byways. It rambles, in the best sense. More than that, it has become the musical icon of the big American city, with its nervousness and its openness and sense of optimistic striving. I can't think of any other work that comes close. George Gershwin George Gershwin Died; Hollywood, California, 11 July 1937 George Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz. His parents emigrated from Russia to the U.S.A in 1891. He first discovered music at age 10 at a friend's violin recital in a school auditorium in the lower East Side of Manhattan. Georges early interests were not in music, but sports.

When a piano was brought into the Gershowitz home for brother Ira, George (age 12) was the one whose interest was sparked. After playing from memory a song he had heard on a neighbor's player piano, Georges parents invested in lessons. By age 15 Gershwin had quit school and landed a job as pianist and "song plugger" for a Tin Pan Alley music-publishing firm, Jerome H. Remick & Company, at a salary of $15 a week. To increase his income, Gershwin recorded piano rolls under various pen names. For his efforts he received $35 for six rolls. He was interested in both serious and popular music, and composed in both styles. He was one of the first composers to combine jazz and classical music styles. George was a great admirer of the comedian Ed Wynn and it is at this time, in honor of him, that Gershwin changed the end of his last name. He studied with the American composers Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Wallingford Riegger and with the Russian-born composer and theorist Joseph Schillinger.

Gershwin wrote his first major successful musical work in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue. Asked by Paul Whiteman to write the work for a special concert of modern music to be presented at Aeolian Hall in New York, Gershwin finished his composition in less than three weeks. The speed of writing was due in part to George having forgotten about the commission. It was when Ira read in the newspaper of the upcoming concert that Georges remembered his musical commitment. Much of his inspiration for the work came during a train ride to Boston. According to Gershwin, "with its steely rhythms, its rattlety-bang . . . I suddenly heard - and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the rhapsody from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness." The score was completed in a week upon his return to New York. The original setting was not for a large orchestra, but for a much smaller jazz ensemble. Gershwin himself performed at the piano at the world premiere.

The American composer Ferde Grofé, then a pianist and orchestrator for Paul Whiteman's Orchestra orchestrated Rhapsody in Blue. The success of Rhapsody in Blue led Gershwin to write more pieces for piano and orchestra including the Concerto in F, commissioned by famed conductor, Walter Damrosch. Gershwin followed this brilliant success with his 1928 tone poem An American in Paris, which takes the listener to the streets of Paris in the 1920s and calls for four traffic car horns in concert. To add authentic color to this work Gershwin visited Parisian garages and purchased used taxi horns that he incorporated into the score. Although he composed sketches of the work in Paris, it was completed on a farm in Connecticut. The piece premiered at Carnegie Hall December 13, 1928 and almost immediately transferred from the concert hall to the musical stage as it was incorporated into Show Girl as the ballet scene. Gershwin had traveled to Paris in the hopes of studying with famed teacher Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him saying he was fine the way he was. Gershwin also sought to study with Igor Stravinsky.

When he approached the composer at a party Stravinsky surprised him with the question "How much money do you make a year?" Upon hearing the answer Stravinsky replied, "Perhaps I should study with you, Mr. Gershwin." The lyrics for nearly all of George Gershwins songs were written by his older brother, Ira. The song "Swanee," introduced by Al Jolson in Sinbad, became the greatest hit of Gershwins entire career. George and Ira followed this success with a constant flow of bright, up-tempo tunes and heartfelt ballads to became the dominant Broadway songwriters of the 1920s. This extraordinary collaboration led to a succession of 22 musical comedies. The Gershwin brothers musical Of Thee I Sing was the first musical to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize. George & Ira Gershwins greatest musical undertaking, Porgy and Bess, which was the first American opera, met with very little success when it initially opened. It was set in the south and dealt with the poor of the ghettos and their daily lives.

Gershwin, fascinated by the DuBose Heyward novel Porgy, recognised it as a perfect vehicle for opera using jazz and blues rhythms and idioms. What he called a "folk opera," Porgy and Bess (co-written with DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and Ira Gershwin) was the Gershwin brothers most ambitious endeavor - the songs, orchestrations and drama all being of equal importance. Porgy and Bess was premiered on September 30, 1935 in Boston, and opened on Broadway on October 10. In addition to its 1942 and 1953 revivals and subsequent world tours, it was made into a major motion picture in 1959. Cuban Overture (first titled Rumba) was George Gershwin's last attempt at a major serious orchestral success. He vacationed in Havana in 1932 and became very interested in the Cuban music, particularly the percussion. Gershwin always ahead of his time, premiered his overture well ahead of Xavier Cugat, who popularized music with Cuban rhythms.

Over the years, Gershwin songs have also been used in numerous films and musicals, including My One and Only (1983) and Crazy For You (1992). Crazy For You is loosely based on Girl Crazy, with a new libretto by Ken Ludwig and features several George and Ira songs, including two previously unpublished numbers. Gershwins music has been featured in movies such as When Harry Met Sally and Mr. Holland's Opus, and in the opening of the 1988 Olympics. George Gershwin rarely made grand statements about his music. He described himself as a "modern romantic" and was quoted as saying, "true music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today." Famous Works by George Gershwin include: For Piano & Orchestra: Rhapsody in Blue, Piano Concerto in F, An American in Paris For Orchestra: Cuban Overture Opera: Blue Monday Blues, Porgy and Bess, including It Aint Necessarily So, I Got Plenty o' Nuttin, Bess You Is My Woman Now and Summertime.

Instrumental Solos: Three Preludes, Rialto Ripples Popular Songs: The Man I Love, Lady Be Good, Nice Work If You Can Get It, Someone To Watch Over Me, Fascinating Rhythm, I Got Rhythm, S'Wonderful, Swanee, Our Love Is Here To Stay, The Man I Love, Embraceable You, A Foggy Day Musicals: La La Lucille, Broadway Brevities of 1920, Lady, be Good!. Oh Kay! Strike up the Band, Funny Face, Girl Crazy; Of Thee I Sing George George Gershwin | American composer | Britannica.com American composer Alternative Titles: Jacob Gershovitz, Jacob Gershvin George Gershwin Béla Bartók George Gershwin, original name Jacob Gershvin (born September 26, 1898, Brooklyn, New York , U.S.—died July 11, 1937, Hollywood, California ), one of the most significant and popular American composers of all time.

He wrote primarily for the Broadway musical theatre , but important as well are his orchestral and piano compositions in which he blended, in varying degrees, the techniques and forms of classical music with the stylistic nuances and techniques of popular music and jazz . Early career and influences Gershwin was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Although his family and friends were not musically inclined, Gershwin developed an early interest in music through his exposure to the popular and classical compositions he heard at school and in penny arcades. He began his musical education at age 11, when his family bought a second-hand upright piano, ostensibly so that George’s older sibling, Ira , could learn the instrument. When George surprised everyone with his fluid playing of a popular song , which he had taught himself by following the keys on a neighbor’s player piano, his parents decided that George would be the family member to receive lessons. He studied piano with the noted instructor Charles Hambitzer, who introduced his young student to the works of the great classical composers. Hambitzer was so impressed with Gershwin’s potential that he refused payment for the lessons; as he wrote in a letter to his sister, “I have a new pupil who will make his mark if anybody will.

The boy is a genius…” Gershwin continued to broaden his musical knowledge and compositional technique throughout his career with such disparate mentors as the idiosyncratic American composers Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger , the distinguished traditionalist Edward Kilenyi, and Joseph Schillinger, a musical theorist known for his mathematically grounded approach to composition . After dropping out of school at age 15, Gershwin earned an income by making piano rolls for player pianos and by playing in New York nightclubs. His most important job in this period was his stint as a song plugger (probably the youngest in Tin Pan Alley ), demonstrating sheet music for the Jerome Remick music-publishing company. In an era when sheet-music sales determined the popularity of a song, song pluggers such as Gershwin worked long hours pounding out tunes on the piano for potential customers. Although Gershwin’s burgeoning creativity was hampered by his three-year stint in “plugger’s purgatory” (as Gershwin biographer Isaac Goldberg termed it), it was nevertheless an experience that greatly improved his dexterity and increased his skills at improvisation and transposing.

While still in his teens, Gershwin was known as one of the most talented pianists in the New York area and worked as an accompanist for popular singers and as a rehearsal pianist for Broadway musicals. In 1916 he composed his first published song, “ When You Want ’Em You Can’t Get ’Em (When You’ve Got ’Em You Don’t Want ’Em), ” as well as his first solo piano composition, “ Rialto Ripples. ” He began to attract the attention of some Broadway luminaries, and the operetta composer Sigmund Romberg included one of Gershwin’s songs in The Passing Show of 1916. Britannica Stories Ringling Bros. Folds Its Tent These early experiences greatly increased Gershwin’s knowledge of jazz and popular music. He enjoyed especially the songs of Irving Berlin and Jerome Kern —referring to Berlin as “America’s Franz Schubert” and stating that Kern was “the first composer who made me conscious that most popular music was of inferior quality, and that musical comedy was made of better material”—and he was inspired by their work to compose for the Broadway stage.

In 1919 entertainer Al Jolson performed the Gershwin song “ Swanee ” in the musical Sinbad; it became an enormous success, selling more than two million recordings and a million copies of sheet music, and making Gershwin an overnight celebrity. That same year, La, La Lucille, the first show for which Gershwin composed the entire score, premiered; its most popular songs included “ The Best of Everything, During the next few years, Gershwin contributed songs to various Broadway shows and revues. From 1920 to 1924 he composed scores for the annual productions of George White’s Scandals, the popular variety revue, producing such standards as “ (I’ll Build a) Stairway to Paradise ” and “ Somebody Loves Me. ” For the Scandals production of 1922, Gershwin convinced producer White to incorporate a one-act jazz opera . This work, Blue Monday (later reworked and retitled as 135th Street), was poorly received and was removed from the show after one performance. Bandleader Paul Whiteman , who had conducted the pit orchestra for the show, was nevertheless impressed by the piece.

He and Gershwin shared the common goal of bringing respectability to jazz music, which in 1922 was still being regarded, as evidenced in a New York American editorial, as “degrading, pathological, nerve-irritating, sex-exciting music.” To this end, in late 1923 Whiteman asked Gershwin to compose a piece for an upcoming concert—entitled “An Experiment in Modern Music”—at New York’s Aeolian Concert Hall. Legend has it that Gershwin forgot about the request until early January 1924, when he read a newspaper article announcing that the Whiteman concert on February 12 would feature a major new Gershwin composition. Writing at a furious pace in order to meet the deadline, Gershwin composed Rhapsody in Blue, perhaps his best-known work, in three weeks’ time. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies Owing to the haste in which it was written, Rhapsody in Blue was somewhat unfinished at its premiere.

Gershwin improvised much of the piano solo during the performance, and conductor Whiteman had to rely on a nod from Gershwin to cue the orchestra at the end of the solo. Nevertheless, the piece was a resounding success and brought Gershwin worldwide fame. The revolutionary work incorporated trademarks of the jazz idiom (blue notes, syncopated rhythms, onomatopoeic instrumental effects) into a symphonic context . Gershwin himself later reflected on the work: There had been so much chatter about the limitations of jazz, not to speak of the manifest misunderstandings of its function. Jazz, they said, had to be in strict time. It had to cling to dance rhythms. I resolved, if possible, to kill that misconception with one sturdy blow…No set plan was in my mind, no structure to which my music would conform. The Rhapsody, you see, began as a purpose, not a plan. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest The work, arranged by Ferde Grofé (composer of the Grand Canyon Suite) for either symphony orchestra or jazz band, is perhaps the most-performed and most-recorded orchestral composition of the 20th century.

It is the only one of Gershwin’s major works that Gershwin himself did not orchestrate. Popular songs For the remainder of his career, Gershwin devoted himself to both popular songs and orchestral compositions. His Broadway shows from the 1920s and ’30s featured numerous songs that became standards: “ Fascinating Rhythm, Nice Work if You Can Get It, ” “ ” and “ Love Is Here to Stay. ” His lyricist for nearly all of these tunes was his older brother, Ira, whose glib, witty lyrics—often punctuated with slang, puns, and wordplay—received nearly as much acclaim as George’s compositions. The Gershwin brothers comprised a somewhat unique songwriting partnership in that George’s melodies usually came first—a reverse of the process employed by most composing teams.

(When asked by interviewers, “Which comes first, the words or the music?”, Ira’s standard response was, “The contract.”) So facile was George’s musical imagination that quality songs were often composed within a few minutes of improvisation; other times, he dipped into his notebooks of song sketches that he accumulated over time (he once said, “I have more tunes in my head than I could put down on paper in a hundred years”) and embellished an old melody he had labeled “g.t.” (for “good tune”). Ira would then spend a week or more fitting words to the tune, polishing each line (to the extent that he was nicknamed “The Jeweller” by other songwriters) until he was satisfied. Songwriter Arthur Schwartz regarded Ira’s efforts to be “a truly phenomenal feat, when one considers he was required to be brilliant within the most confining rhythms and accents.” Trending Topics I Got Rhythm , ” was introduced by Ethel Merman in the musical Girl Crazy (1930).

The following year, Gershwin scored a lengthy, elaborate piano arrangement of the song, and in late 1933 he arranged the piece into a set of variations for piano and orchestra; “I Got Rhythm” Variations has since become one of Gershwin’s most-performed orchestral works. In addition, the 32-bar structure of “ I Got Rhythm ” has become the second-most frequently used harmonic progression in jazz improvisation, next to that of the traditional 12-bar blues. Gershwin’s piano score for “ I Got Rhythm ” was part of a larger project begun in 1931, George Gershwin’s Songbook. A collection of Gershwin’s personal favourites among his many hit tunes, it featured the composer’s own adaptations designed “for the above-average pianist.” Offering valuable insight into Gershwin’s use of rhythm and harmony, as well as his own piano style, the Songbook selections have become concert staples for several noted pianists throughout the years and have occasionally been adapted into full orchestra arrangements.

Other works for orchestra In 1925 Gershwin was commissioned by the Symphony Society of New York to write a concerto , prompting the composer to comment, “This showed great confidence on their part as I had never written anything for symphony before…I started to write the concerto in London, after buying four or five books on musical structure to find out what the concerto form actually was!” The resulting work, Concerto in F (1925), was Gershwin’s lengthiest composition and was divided into three traditional concerto movements. The first movement loosely follows a sonata structure of exposition, development, and recapitulation, and it appropriates themes and rhythms from the popular “ Charleston. ” The second movement—the “high water mark of [Gershwin’s] talent,” according to conductor Walter Damrosch , who conducted the work’s premiere performance—is a slow, meditative adaptation of blues progressions, and the third movement—“an orgy of rhythms,” according to Gershwin—introduces new themes and returns, rondo -like, to the themes of the first.

Although not as well received at the time as Rhapsody in Blue, the Concerto in F eventually came to be regarded as one of Gershwin’s most important works as well as perhaps the most popular American piano concerto. An American in Paris (1928), Gershwin’s second-most famous orchestral composition, was inspired by the composer’s trips to Paris throughout the 1920s. His stated intention with the work was to “portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere”; for this purpose, Gershwin incorporated such touches of verisimilitude as real French taxi horns. It is this piece that perhaps best represents Gershwin’s employment of both jazz and classical forms. The harmonic structure of An American in Paris is rooted in blues traditions (particularly the “ Homesick Blues ” middle section), and soloists are often required to bend, slide, and growl certain notes and passages, in the style of jazz musicians of the 1920s.

The melodies that are repeated and embellished throughout the work, however, are never subject to alteration—the antithesis of the jazz philosophy that regards melody as a mere loose outline for imaginative decoration. With its varied rhythms and free structure (“Five sections held together more or less by intuition,” according to one critic), An American in Paris seemed more balletic than symphonic and, indeed, the piece gained its most lasting fame 23 years after its premiere, when it was used by Gene Kelly for the closing ballet sequence of the classic, eponymous film musical in 1951. Gershwin’s other major orchestral compositions have grown in stature and popularity throughout the years. His Second Rhapsody (1931) began life under the working titles “Manhattan Rhapsody” and “Rhapsody in Rivets” and was featured, in embryonic form, as incidental music in the film Delicious (1931). Perhaps the most experimental of Gershwin’s major works, it has been praised as his most perfect composition in terms of structure and orchestration.

Gershwin’s Cuban Overture (1932), which he stated was inspired by “two hysterical weeks in Cuba where no sleep was had,” employed rhumba rhythms and such percussion instruments as claves, maracas, bongo drums, and gourds, all of which were generally unknown at the time in the United States . It is a work frequently revived by symphony conductors, who find its brash, festival-like mood to be a rousing concert-opener. Porgy and Bess Throughout his career, Gershwin had major successes on Broadway with shows such as Lady, Be Good! (1924), Oh, Kay! (1926), Strike Up the Band (1930), Girl Crazy (1930), and, especially, the daring political satire Of Thee I Sing (1931), for which Ira and librettists George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind shared a Pulitzer Prize . (Rules of the Pulitzer committee at the time did not allow for composers to share in a drama award. Ira objected that George was not a corecipient, but George insisted that the rules be obeyed.

In protest, Ira hung his Pulitzer certificate in his bathroom.) These shows, smash hits in their time, are (save for Gershwin’s music) largely forgotten today; ironically, his most enduring and respected Broadway work, Porgy and Bess, was lukewarmly received upon its premiere in 1935. Gershwin’s “American Folk Opera” was inspired by the DuBose Heyward novel Porgy (1925) and featured a libretto and lyrics by Ira and the husband-wife team of DuBose and Dorothy Heyward. In preparation for the show, Gershwin spent time in the rural South, studying firsthand the music and lifestyle of impoverished African Americans. Theatre critics received the premiere production enthusiastically, but highbrow music critics were derisive, distressed that “lowly” popular music should be incorporated into an opera structure. Black audiences throughout the years have criticized the work for its condescending depiction of stereotyped characters and for Gershwin’s inauthentic appropriation of black musical forms.

Nevertheless, Gershwin’s music—including such standards as “ Summertime, It Ain’t Necessarily So, ” “ Bess, You Is My Woman Now, ” and “ I Got Plenty O’ Nuttin’ ”—transcended early criticism to attain a revered niche in the musical world, largely because it successfully amalgamates various musical cultures to evoke something uniquely American and wholly Gershwin. Porgy and Bess received overdue recognition in the years 1952–54 when the U.S. State Department selected it to represent the United States on an international tour, during which it became the first opera by an American composer to be performed at the La Scala opera house in Milan. While it still raises political issues, contemporary attitudes towards the work are reflected in a statement by Grace Bumbry, who portrayed Bess in the Metropolitan Opera’s widely praised revival in 1985: “I resented the role at first, possibly because I really didn’t know the score, and I think because of the racial aspect. I thought it beneath me, I felt I had worked far too hard, that we had come too far to regress to 1935.

My way of dealing with it was to see that it really was a piece of Americana, of American history.” Many now consider the score from Porgy and Bess to be Gershwin’s greatest masterpiece. George Gershwin, working on the score for Porgy and Bess, 1935. Pictorial Parade Aftermath and assessment Gershwin was known as a gregarious man whose huge ego was tempered by a genuinely magnetic personality. He loved his work and approached every assignment with enthusiasm, never suffering from “composer’s block.” Throughout the first half of 1937, Gershwin began experiencing severe headaches and brief memory blackouts, although medical tests showed him to be in good health. By July, Gershwin exhibited impaired motor skills and drastic weight loss, and he required assistance in walking. He lapsed into a coma on July 9, and a spinal tap revealed the presence of a brain tumor. Gershwin never regained consciousness and died during surgery two days later.

He was at the peak of his powers with several unrealized projects ahead of him (among them, some sketches for a new string quartet and a new symphony, a proposed ballet score, and musical comedy collaborations with George S. Kaufman and DuBose Heyward). His death stunned the nation, whose collective feelings can be summed up in a famous statement from novelist John O’Hara : “George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.” Ira Gershwin, so devastated that he could not work for more than a year after George’s death, became the keeper of his brother’s legacy . In later years, he supervised the release of several unpublished Gershwin compositions, including several works for piano, the Lullaby for string quartet, and the Catfish Row Suite from Porgy and Bess (a work cobbled together after the show had closed and now considered to be the last orchestral work to be composed and scored by Gershwin).

Ira also put lyrics to tunes from George’s notebooks, creating “new” Gershwin songs for the films The Shocking Miss Pilgrim (1947) and Kiss Me, Stupid (1964). He had continued success with other collaborators, including Kurt Weill , Jerome Kern, and Harold Arlen . Gershwin’s music remains a subject of debate among prominent international conductors, composers, and music scholars, some of whom find his works for orchestra to be naively structured, little more than catchy melodies strung together by the barest of musical links. In 1954, Leonard Bernstein summed up the feelings of many classical musicians, saying, “The themes are terrific—inspired, God-given. I don’t think there has been such an inspired melodist on this earth since Tchaikovsky. But if you want to speak of a composer, that’s another matter.” Nevertheless, Gershwin’s accomplishments are considerable: he ranks (along with Irving Berlin, Cole Porter , and Richard Rodgers ) as one of the four greatest composers for the American musical theatre, as well as the only popular composer of the 20th century to have made a significant and lasting dent in the classical music world.

He had great admirers in the classical field, including such luminaries as Arturo Toscanini , Fritz Reiner , Arnold Schoenberg , Maurice Ravel , Sergey Prokofiev , and Alban Berg , all of whom cited Gershwin’s genius for melody and harmony. His orchestral works, now performed by most of the world’s prestigious symphony orchestras, have attained a status for which Gershwin longed during his lifetime. Aaron Copland and Charles Ives may rival Gershwin for the title of “great American composer,” but their works tend to be admired, whereas Gershwin’s are beloved. As the noted musicologist Hans Keller stated, “Gershwin is a genius, in fact, whose style hides the wealth and complexity of his invention. There are indeed weak spots, but who cares about them when there is greatness?” More about George Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin Songfacts Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin Songfacts Songfacts By 1923, the bandleader Paul Whiteman wanted to do something different with jazz.

He wanted to turn the American dance band into something a bit more prestigious, or as Paul Osgood, the author of 1926's So This is Jazz put it, make "an honest woman out of jazz." Whiteman said in 1927, "I never questioned her honesty. I simply thought she needed a new dress." Whiteman invited George Gershwin to perform in his Experiment in Modern Music show with his Palais Royal Orchestra, slated for February 12, 1924. George's brother Ira Gershwin recalled reading an article in the New York Herald on January 4 about the upcoming jazz concerto, which said that George would be performing. This was news to Ira. George reports that he had started to consider the idea of writing something that pushed "the limitations of jazz" the previous December. When working out the theme, he heard it as "a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America." "American Rhapsody" became "Rhapsody in Blue" at Ira's suggestion. Whiteman's show began in the afternoon and carried into the evening. The packed house had already enjoyed a full program of some of the America's finest jazz.

A critic for Theatre Magazine wrote, "Mr. Whiteman's jazz concert was often vulgar, but it was never dull." However, it was Gershwin's piece that was the star of the show. The two-and-a-half-octave clarinet glissando is instantly recognizable today, but was not like much that the crowd had ever heard before. "Rhapsody in Blue" commanded three curtain calls, despite the fact that Gershwin had been so rushed to complete the score, he improvised his own piano solo. His manuscript of the music contained blank pages in place of his piano parts. In addition to Gershwin, 18 musicians played a total of 23 instruments at the concert. The piece was arranged by Ferde Grofé. Is this jazz? Critics have been divided on that. Some have suggested that it is a series of songs strung together that can easily be broken up. Maybe that was, to a degree, the point. Gershwin wanted to write something that exemplified America as a melting pot, not to mention to prove his own worth as a serious composer. He did both.

Respected writer William Saroyan said of the piece, it is "an American in New York City; at the same time it is an American in any city... It is also an American in a small town, on a farm, at work in a factory, in a mine or a mill, a forest or a field." New York critic Olin Downes said of Gershwin after the show, "This is no mere dance-tune set for piano and other instruments. This composition shows extraordinary talent, just as it also shows a young composer with aims that go far beyond those of his ilk." By the end of the year, Whiteman and his orchestra had performed "Rhapsody in Blue" more than 80 times and their recording had sold over a million copies. The success of the song was not lost on Gershwin. Legend has it that when he was speaking with composer John Ireland, Gershwin asked him how often Ireland's rhapsody, "Mai-Dun," was played per year. When Ireland replied, "Three," Gershwin said, "Three.

Ah, Mine gets played two or three times per day!" The original 1924 performance of this song was recorded, and it was released on June 10, 1924. Running a total of 8:59, it took up both sides of a 78-rpm record, and much of the middle section was omitted. In 1927, Ferde Grofé re-orchestrated the song, and Gershwin again recorded it with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. With a slower tempo and much better sound quality, this became the most popular version of the song. Many listeners will recognize this song as the signature music of United Airlines, which used it in commercials and on board their planes starting in 1987. Unlike older classical compositions, the song is not in the public domain, so United paid a fee of $300,000 per year to license the piece. For United, the recognizable and elegant song helped brand the airline as trustworthy while soothing passengers in potentially stressful circumstances. It was a major change from their "fly the friendly skies" campaign which they used pre-"Rhapsody," and remains one of the most iconic uses of music in corporate branding.

United was the first company to use the song in commercials. Some of the media uses of this song include the TV shows The Simpsons (in the 2010 episode "Elementary School Musical" and again in 2012 in "The D'oh-cial Network") and Glee, and the movies Poetic Justice and Fantasia/2000. Many older movies featured the song as well, including St. Louis Blues (1929), King of Jazz (1930), and The Great Ziegfeld (1936). Gershwin conceived his famous piano concerto while on a train to Boston. He said at the beginning of 1924: "I had already done some work on the rhapsody. It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang that is often so stimulating for a composer." Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson says that this is the first song he ever heard, and that he was enthralled by it. "I loved the part where the violins came in," he told Rolling Stone. "I just got this overwhelmingly beautiful vibe from the music."

Question: Who wrote the 1924 musical composition ‘Rhapsody in Blue’?
Answer: George Gershwin