MusiLLection

The Jazz Age shaped artists and musicians alike. This painting by Lyonel Charles Feininger reflects the spirit of the era that inspired Gershwin’s music. George Gershwin first achieved fame as a songwriter, yet from the very beginning of his career he aspired to compose what was then considered “serious” concert music. That ambition took shape decisively when conductor and impresario Paul Whiteman commissioned him to write a work for a so-called “jazz concerto.” The result was Rhapsody in Blue , a groundbreaking piece for piano and orchestra that instantly transformed Gershwin into a cultural phenomenon. Just one year later, in 1925, Gershwin received a new and more demanding commission—this time from New York conductor Walter Damrosch—for a full-length concerto in the European tradition. Working simultaneously on the Broadway shows Tell Me More and Tip Toes , Gershwin composed what he initially titled the New York Concerto , later known as the Piano Concerto in F Major . The conc...

George Gershwin, whose music bridged popular song and classical tradition with effortless originality . The musical journey of George Gershwin is singular in both scope and intensity. Few composers have moved so effortlessly—and so successfully—across such diverse musical worlds: Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, Hollywood, concert halls, and opera houses. In a remarkably short lifetime, Gershwin achieved a level of recognition that spanned popular and classical domains without ever diluting his artistic voice. As a songwriter, Gershwin emerged at precisely the right historical moment. He captured the spirit of American popular music as it was coming into its own, shaping it with instinctive melodic flair and rhythmic vitality. As a composer, he elevated that same musical language, granting it formal coherence and artistic ambition while preserving its immediacy and emotional directness. Gershwin possessed a keen awareness of Western European compositional techniques, yet his musical heart b...

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....

Orchestral: Rhapsody in Blue Piano Concerto in F Major An American in Paris Second Rhapsody for piano and orchestra Cuban Overture Variations on "I Got Rhythm" Piano works: Three Preludes Musicals Theatre credits: George White's Scandals Primrose Lady, Be Good! Tell me More Tip-Toes Funny Face Girl Crazy Of Thee I Sing The Rainbow Oh, Kay! La La Lucille Musical Films: Shall We Dance? A Damsel in Distress The Goldwyn Follies The Shocking Miss Pilgrim Opera: Porgy and Bess Songs: Swanee The Man I Love Embraceable You The Way You Look Tonight I Got Rhythm Oh, Lady Be Good! It Ain't Necessarily So Summertime

Gershwin 's Three Preludes for Piano form a satisfying set: two fairly short and vivid parts on each side of a more extensive, slow center piece. - Allegro ben ritmato e deciso The first prelude has a playful lyrical rhythm and an appealing melody, which hints at Latin American rhythms such as the rumba and their close relationship with those of jazz. - Andante con moto e poco rubato The second prelude is the best known of the three. It is an other example of Gershwin's special way of editing the blues, with the slow, sluggish melody sounding over a canvas of repetitive chords for the left hand. A central part changes from minor to major and also transfers the melody to the left hand or bass line. - Allegro ben ritmato e deciso The rhythm of the final prelude takes us to the living world of dance, inspired from jazz.

A photo from the first performance of the opera  Porgy and Bess  in New York in 1935. Gershwin's unique attempt at opera, created a dizzying combination of classical drama and atmospheric jazz, which remains unsurpassed in contemporary music. Gershwin loved "black music" as they originally called jazz. Its pulsating rhythms reached the ears of the refined American white society in the early decades of the twentieth century. Gershwin felt that her pure energy lies in the soul of the American people. Many of the songs are deeply influenced by jazz, but his real ambition was to write a great black opera. Gershwin's attempt to introduce jazz to the opera combined two antidiametric musical genres. Already famous as a songwriter, in 1926, he realized that the material for this challenge was in the popular novel Porgy , which referred to the tragic love of a black beggar from Charleston, South Carolina. But it took eight years before he started composing, in collaboration w...