George Gershwin
The great musical border crosser of the 20th century, George Gershwin excelled in the fields of concert music and popular song alike. The son of Jewish immigrants from Russia, he was born Jacob Gershvin in Brooklyn on September 26, 1898. His father ran a great variety of small businesses, and George, in the words of The New Grove Dictionary of Music, "excelled at street sports." He also studied the piano and was introduced to the European classics by his teacher Charles Hambitzer.
Gershwin immersed himself in popular music after dropping out of school in 1914 and getting a job as a salesman for the music publisher Remick. He was influenced by ragtime and stride piano music, and as a songwriter enjoyed his first hit in 1920 with "Swanee," recorded by the leading vocalist of the time, Al Jolson. Gershwin and his brother Ira became one of the great creative teams in the history of music, each attuned to the considerable subtleties of which the other was capable. Their 1924 musical Lady, Be Good gained wide familiarity thanks to its hit song, "Fascinating Rhythm." George Gershwin also wrote works for the concert hall: Rhapsody in Blue (1924), best known in an orchestration by Ferde Grofé; the Piano Concerto in F of 1925; and 1928's An American in Paris have been audience favorites since their respective premieres. Probably Gershwin's most famous work was the uncategorizable Porgy and Bess; "folk opera" was an early attempt at description. Set among Black residents of Charleston, South Carolina, Porgy and Bess includes the song "Summertime," heavily recorded by both popular and classical artists.
Gershwin continued to write popular songs and musicals; 1930 brought the successful show Girl Crazy and its catchy yet strikingly complex hit number "I Got Rhythm." The 1932 show Of Thee I Sing was especially notable for its crackling political satire. Gershwin went to Hollywood in 1936 to write for the RKO film studio. In early 1937 he began to complain of headaches, but doctors chalked his symptoms up to stress. In reality he was suffering from a brain tumor; he died on July 11, 1937.
The question of Gershwin's status as a classical composer is a live and productive one. Some observers have pointed out the strong resemblances between his popular and concert idioms, and it is certainly true that for all his studies of the classics over the years, Gershwin rarely wrestled with the problem of large-scale form, which one might regard as classical music's most definitive quest. His concert pieces consist of sequences of great melodies -- perhaps expected in a piece called a "rhapsody" but less impressive for music aspiring to the status of "concerto" or even "tone poem," as An American in Paris was classified. Yet it was not only the American public that loved Gershwin's concert works. They were widely performed in Europe, where they shaped the jazz inflections that began to creep into the music of such composers as Maurice Ravel. Even the proponents of the difficult 12-tone system admired Gershwin's music: Gershwin hobnobbed with Alban Berg in Paris and played tennis with Arnold Schoenberg in Hollywood. "It seems to me beyond doubt that Gershwin was an innovator," Schoenberg wrote, and perhaps history will judge Gershwin as the first harbinger of a new music neither classical nor popular, drawing techniques from many sources and forms of musical knowledge. Who could ask for anything more?
© TiVo Staff /TiVo
Similar artists
-
Gershwin Plays Gershwin
Jazz - Released by Everest Records on 24 Aug 1974
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
An American in Paris (Ost) [1951]
Film Soundtracks - Released by Classic Soundtrack Collector on 28 Jun 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin: An American in Paris / Concerto
Classical - Released by Danacord Records on 1 May 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rhapsody In Blue
Classical - Released by Red Cab Records on 10 Jan 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin: Piano Solos
Symphonic Music - Released by Stradivari Classics on 1 Jan 1988
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Of
Jazz - Released by Glory Days Records on 29 Oct 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin: Works for two Pianos
Ines Walachowski, Anna Walachowski
Classical - Released by Berlin Classics on 19 Feb 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
Half of It Dearie Blues
Classical - Released by Music Maestros on 1 Aug 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Porgy and Bess Orginal Soundtrack
Film Soundtracks - Released by Black Sheep Music on 21 Jan 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin Plays Rhapsody in Blue and Other Favourites
Classical - Released by Legacy International on 1 Mar 1967
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Atmosphere: Summer
Classical - Released by Analekta on 1 May 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Blue Monday - George Gershwin
Jazz - Released by Ermitage Records on 21 Oct 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin Plays Rhapsody in Blue
Jazz - Released by Shout! Factory on 13 May 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gershwin on Screen II: "Shall We Dance", "Damsel In Distress"
Film Soundtracks - Released by Lumi OMP on 20 Dec 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Classical Gershwin
Classical - Released by Reader's Digest Music on 31 Aug 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
George Gershwin: Highlights from "Porgy & Bess" (1935 - 1950)
Robert Russell Bennett, Robert Merrill, Eleanor Steber
Classical - Released by Classical Moments on 30 Apr 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
Coastal Communities Concert Band - Highlights from 2007
Coastal Communities Concert Band
Classical - Released by Tresona on 1 Jan 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Clarinet Lollipops
Classical - Released by Continuum on 2 Dec 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
I Got Rhythm: The Music of George Gershwin, Vol. 1
Jazz - Released by Supreme Media on 1 Feb 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo