George Gershwin (1898–1937)
George Gershwin was born in 1898. He grew up listening to the
music around him in Brooklyn and Manhattan—in the Lower East
Side, in the midtown theater district, in the Harlem clubs.
He was influenced early on by all the music that he heard, including
the early jazz of African Americans and the Eastern European
sounds of his Jewish heritage.
At a very young age, George Gershwin decided to learn as much
about music as he could. He went to free classical music concerts
whenever possible. He secretly practiced on the pianos of his
friends. When he was 12, his family finally bought a piano—
really for his older brother, Ira. The piano was hoisted up
the outside of the building and brought into the apartment through
the window. No sooner had this happened than, to the astonishment
of everyone in his family, George sat down and started playing
a popular tune of the day!
He began taking lessons, and by the age of 15 was good enough
to get a job playing piano at the Remick Publishing Company,
which was a sheet music establishment in the part of Manhattan
then known as "Tin Pan Alley." (Remember, there were no radios
or record players then!)
Gershwin became what was known as a "song plugger." People would
come in to buy sheet music, and Gershwin would play the newest
tunes for them—improvising and elaborating on the tunes to show
them to their best advantage. People in show business would
come by to look for songs they might use in their acts. Soon
Gershwin started writing songs himself. He even began working
on Broadway shows, although none was a huge hit. His first really
successful song was "Swanee."
Gershwin loved to show off his terrific piano-playing skills
at parties. He started getting invitations to social gatherings
given by rich and famous people. One of the people who heard
him, and was impressed, was Paul Whiteman, known in 1923 as
the "King of Jazz." He had a very popular jazz band at that
time.
Surprisingly, Whiteman decided to put on an unusual, serious
concert called "An Experiment in Modern Music." "Whiteman's
Folly" was what some of his friends called it! He did wind up
losing thousands of dollars on it, so they were right on that
aspect of it. However, in the context of music history, the
concert was an unforgettable event because of the premiere performance
of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
Whiteman had received concert training and had a conscious need
for jazz to be accepted by his more "highbrow" colleagues. Jazz
was already being touted by musicologists as the great American
musical invention. He wanted to celebrate this—to justify jazz
in the eyes of the highbrows. This gave him the idea of asking
George Gershwin to write a symphonic piece for his concert—and
the invitation was given.
Gershwin Composes the Rhapsody in Blue
At first, Gershwin refused the invitation to write a new
composition for Paul Whiteman's concert. He was busy working
on a new Broadway show that was about to open in previews
in Boston. Several weeks went by, and he actually almost forgot
about Whiteman's invitation. Then, early in January, he read
in a column in the New York Herald Tribune that he
(Gershwin) was at work on a symphony!
This was news—especially to George himself! He decided that
he would have to compose something for the concert, for the
sake of his own reputation. At first, he thought about writing
a simple, short number. Then, he completely changed his mind
and decided to write a rhapsody for piano and orchestra—not
a concerto or a symphony, but a rhapsody.
A rhapsody is a composition in very free form. It suggests
a more emotional kind of music than a concerto. This made
it easier for Gershwin, a mostly self-taught musician, to
feel more comfortable with composing his work. Like a concerto,
Rhapsody in Blue does have slow and fast sections and
it has at least two solo sections that would qualify as virtuoso
solo cadenzas, but it has no formal structure that fits any
pre-set formula, as do most concerti.
Up to then, America didn't really have a serious classical
music style of its own. Most American composers borrowed ideas
from European composers like Beethoven, Bach, and Chopin.
This was Gershwin's chance to show how important American
music could be. He wanted the piece to have the sounds of
the "modern" America of the 1920s. Nostalgia, sentiment, and
romance were the key elements in the music Gershwin already
knew, and he brought those elements to his assignment. The
music is full of the big city sounds of traffic and machines.
Another famous American composer, Victor Herbert, was also
to be featured on the concert. He was a fan of Gershwin's,
and wanted to be the one who would conduct Rhapsody in
Blue. However, at the last minute, Whiteman decided to
conduct it after all. Herbert made an interesting contribution
to the piece nonetheless. Originally, the three measures preceding
the grand middle melody were each exactly the same, the pitches
simply repeating an octave higher. Victor Herbert made the
suggestion that it be made into the melodic sequence which
leads into the slow section that is so familiar to music lovers
today—with the second measure beginning just an augmented
fourth higher.
The Importance of Gershwin as a Composer
Like no other composer, Gershwin expressed his times through
his music. Perhaps this is because he came to composition
from the viewpoint of a popular music artist of his era. His
compositional style was somewhat like his jazz piano improvisations
in that he "varied" melodies more than he "developed" them,
as did more classically oriented composers. However, his ability
to write melody was probably unmatched by any other American
composer. On a recent television program featuring some of
his songs, Larry Adler, the artist harmonica player, said
that Gershwin was "on another planet" compared to other composers
of popular songs.
It has been said that one special beauty of his writing is
that, as a performer, one can still "do one's own thing" with
it. There is some space for personal expression. It seems
almost as if he wrote the music with that in mind. As a result,
every performance of Rhapsody in Blue by various pianists
is different.
Paul Whiteman and Gershwin always had a friendly argument
about who made whom famous. In reality, if it had not been
for Whiteman, there would never have been a Rhapsody in
Blue. If it had not been for Gershwin, that Aeolian Hall
concert at which it was introduced would probably have been
a total failure—a mere blip on the music history "sands of
time."
George Gershwin went on to write the music for many Broadway
shows, the Concerto in F, American in Paris,
and the folk-opera Porgy and Bess. He died of a brain
tumor in 1937, at age 39.
Think It Over
More Suggestions
- Sing or listen to one or more selections
by George Gershwin in Spotlight on Music
| Book
1 |
"Summertime"
- page T375 |
(listening) |
| Book 4 |
"Summertime"
- page 160 |
(listening) |
| Book 5 |
"Fascinating Rhythm" - page 186 |
(listening) |
| |
"I've Got
Rhythm" - page 187 |
(listening) |
| Book 6 |
"Summertime"
- page 120 |
(listening) |
Supplemental Material
|
