Gershwin : Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue

George Gershwin (1898-1937)

With the first performance of the Rhapsody in Blue in February, 1924, George Gershwin won instant and sensational fame as a composer of great originality and creative power. He had previously made a name for himself in “Tin Pan Alley,” the world of commercial popular music, but a commission from the bandleader Paul Whiteman for a concert work featuring solo piano in a jazz idiom was the beginning of a rich and varied career as a composer of “serious music.” Soon there followed such works as the Concerto in F (1925), American in Paris (1928), and the opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). We can only imagine what might have been had Gershwin’s life not been so tragically cut short.

The opening clarinet solo, so defiantly confident and startlingly original, seems to proclaim the arrival of a bold new genius in American music. The solo piano, which is first heard in a quite casual manner, soon moves into brilliant virtuoso display, the raw energy of the music a reflection of the reckless spirit of “Roaring Twenties” America. Perhaps the most famous moment is that which forms a link to the traditions of concert music: the broadly lyrical, Romantic melody unfolded in the strings, then taken up by the piano. Gershwin actually composed a “Second Rhapsody” in 1931, a fine work which has always been overshadowed by the more celebrated work of 1924.

GPYO concert