George Gershwin - An American in Paris

In the 1920s, Paris exerted a powerful fascination on American artists—writers, painters, and musicians alike. George Gershwin was no exception. Like his contemporary Cole Porter, he was drawn to the city’s energy, elegance, and modern spirit.

While Porter celebrated Paris mainly through song, Gershwin turned to the symphonic orchestra and composed his most ambitious orchestral work, An American in Paris, as a musical reflection of his own experiences in the French capital.

The work was first performed in 1928 at Carnegie Hall in New York under the direction of Walter Damrosch. Twenty years later, it inspired the celebrated Hollywood film An American in Paris, starring Gene Kelly, further cementing the piece’s place in cultural history.

A symphonic poem

An American in Paris is conceived as a symphonic poem. Rather than narrating a fixed story, Gershwin evokes images, sounds, and emotional states associated with the city, filtered through the perspective of an American visitor.

A brief, lively theme in the violins, supported by subtle harmonic textures, introduces the protagonist. Soon after, the sharp calls of Parisian taxi horns vividly suggest the noise and movement of the boulevards. A contrasting, reflective section follows, with refined writing for woodwinds and strings, evoking a quieter, perhaps nocturnal image of Paris.

Rhythmic vitality soon returns, and Gershwin introduces one of his most characteristic ideas: a restrained yet unmistakable blues-inflected theme, first presented by a solo trumpet. Another carefree melody, also entrusted to the trumpet, gradually leads the music back to the energetic opening material, before reaching an apparent conclusion tinged with a subtle note of melancholy.

In An American in Paris, Gershwin achieves a remarkable synthesis of symphonic writing with jazz and blues idioms, creating a vibrant musical portrait of the city—brilliant, restless, lyrical, and profoundly human.

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