It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer.... I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise. And there I suddenly heard—and even saw on paper—the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance. [21] Schneider, Wayne, ed. (1999). The Gershwin Style: New Looks at the Music of George Gershwin. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-509020-8. Premiered at Aeolian Hall, New York, on February 12, 1924. Paul Whiteman and His Orchestra, George Gershwin (piano). Colford, Paul D. (October 9, 1985). "He's Almost World Famous: Meet Richard Clayderman, 'the world's most popular pianist' ". Newsday. Melville, New York. p.131 . Retrieved February 21, 2022– via Newspapers.com. At 25, Gershwin was already the toast of Broadway. The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Gershwin had taken piano lessons as a kid growing up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. After dropping out of high school to become a song-plugger on Tin Pan Alley, he landed his first Broadway show at 20 and began his meteoric rise as one of America’s leading popular song writers. His ambitions extended beyond Broadway’s stages, however; Gershwin had always had an interest in classical music, and even attended a New York performance of Schoenberg’s avant-garde song-cycle Pierrot lunaire. Making History

Billboard Top 50 Easy Listening (1973)". The Billboard. Vol.85, no.38. September 22, 1973. pp.27, 56 . Retrieved February 21, 2022. Concerto in F (1925), three movements, for piano and orchestra, premiered in Carnegie Hall by the New York Symphony Orchestra, Walter Damrosch conducting. Concurrent with the emergence of these more diverse interpretations, scholarly interest revived in the original 1924 arrangement by Ferde Grofé which had not been performed since the end of the Jazz Age. On February 14, 1973, conductor Kenneth Kiesler and pianist Paul Verrette performed Grofé's original arrangement on the University of New Hampshire campus. [92] Soon after, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas and the Columbia Jazz Band recorded Grofé's arrangement in 1976, as did conductor Maurice Peress with pianist Ivan Davis in 1984 as part of a 60th-anniversary reconstruction of the entire 1924 concert. [93]They Can't Take That Away from Me: this sequence is in the form of a foxtrot, one of Gershwin's favorites from the score; George Gershwin was at the height of his career in 1937. His symphonic works and three PRELUDES for piano were becoming part of the standard repertoire for concerts and recitals, and his show songs had brought him increasing fame and fortune. It was in Hollywood, while working on the score of THE GOLDWYN FOLLIES, that George Gershwin died of a brain tumor; he was not quite 39 years old. Countless people throughout the world, who knew Gershwin only through his work, were stunned by the news as if they had suffered a personal loss. Some years later, the writer John O’Hara summed up their feelings: “George Gershwin died July 11, 1937, but I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to.” Nifties of 1923 – "At Half-Past Seven" (lyrics by Buddy De Sylva); "Nashville Nightingale" (lyrics by Irving Caesar)

Gershwin's rhapsody has influenced a number of composers. In 1955, Rhapsody in Blue inspired accordionist John Serry Sr. to compose his 1957 work American Rhapsody. [118] Brian Wilson, leader of The Beach Boys, stated on several occasions that Rhapsody in Blue is one of his favorite pieces. He first heard the piece as a two-year-old and recalled that he adored it. [119] According to biographer Peter Ames Carlin, the rhapsody influenced Wilson's Smile album. [119] Rhapsody in Blue also inspired a collaboration between blind savant British pianist Derek Paravicini and composer Matthew King on a new concerto, called Blue premiered at the South Bank Centre in London in 2011. [120] Other uses [ edit ] In an article in The Atlantic Monthly in 1955, Leonard Bernstein, who nevertheless admitted that he adored the piece, [52] stated: Sherman, John K. (October 26, 1935). "Gershwin Rhapsody Vividly Interpreted". The Minneapolis Star. Minneapolis, Minnesota. p.34 – via Newspapers.com. Just Another Rhumba (lyrics by Ira Gershwin, originally composed for The Goldwyn Follies, but not used)

Cuban Overture (1932), originally titled Rumba, a tone poem featuring elements of native Cuban dance and folk music; score specifies usage of native Cuban instruments, premiered at the Lewisohn Stadium of the City University of New York, Gershwin conducting. Downes, Olin (February 13, 1924). "A Concert of Jazz". The New York Times. p.16 . Retrieved June 28, 2020.

Catfish Row (1936), a 5-movement suite based on material cut from Porgy and Bess before its Broadway premiere. Overture to Strike Up the Band (1927/revised 1930), the longest and most complex of the overtures for Gershwin's broadway shows, several sections are polytonal/ atonalWhile he was on the train to Boston for rehearsals of his musical, Gershwin sketched out a framework for the new piece, which he began writing on 7 January. Over the next few days, while he also made last-minute changes to ready Sweet Little Devil for its New York opening on 24 January, the genius completed a two-piano score. Sultanof, Jeff, ed. (1987). Rhapsody in Blue: Commemorative Facsimile Edition. Secaucus, New Jersey: Warner Brothers Music. This reproduces Grofé's holograph manuscript from the Gershwin Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress. As early as 1926, Grofé reorchestrated the work for a more standard theater orchestra ensemble, but his 1942 version for full orchestra has become standard. Published in 2018, the new critical edition prepared by Ryan Raul Bañagale restores not only Grofé’s original jazz band orchestration, but also various cuts and alterations Gershwin made to the piano solo part in later years. This edition will serve as the basis for the Houston Symphony’s upcoming performances and is perhaps the closest we will come to what audiences actually heard that snowy afternoon in 1924.

Soon after, on the evening of January 3, George Gershwin and lyricist Buddy DeSylva played a game of billiards at the Ambassador Billiard Parlor at Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan. [15] George's brother, Ira Gershwin, interrupted their billiard game to read aloud the January 4 edition of the New-York Tribune. [16] An unsigned Tribune article entitled "What Is American Music?" about an upcoming Whiteman concert had caught Ira's attention. [15] The article falsely declared that George Gershwin had begun "work on a jazz concerto" for Whiteman's concert. [17] Following the success of an experimental classical-jazz concert held with Canadian singer Éva Gauthier in New York City on November 1, 1923, bandleader Paul Whiteman decided to attempt a more ambitious feat. [2] He asked composer George Gershwin to write a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert in honor of Lincoln's Birthday to be given at Aeolian Hall. [11] Whiteman became fixated upon performing such an extended composition by Gershwin after he collaborated with him in The Scandals of 1922. [12] He had been especially impressed by Gershwin's one-act "jazz opera" Blue Monday. [13] Gershwin initially declined Whiteman's request on the grounds that he would have insufficient time to compose the work and there would likely be a need to revise the score. [14] When that chilly February day arrived, the concert began at 2:45 pm and lasted until well after 5:00. Paul Whiteman, the band leader, recalled that “It was snowing, but men and women were fighting to get in the door, pulling and mauling each other as they do sometimes at a baseball game, or a prize fight, or in the subway […] It was a strange audience out in front. Vaudevillians, concert managers come to have a look at the novelty, Tin Pan Alleyites, composers, symphony and opera stars, flappers, cake-eaters, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy.”

11. A string of hit shows and songs

Moore, Edward (October 6, 1935). "New Musical Records Skim Many Moods". The Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Illinois. p.7 . Retrieved February 21, 2022– via Newspapers.com. George Gershwin Alone – one-man play by Hershey Felder, who portrayed Gershwin, incorporating "Swanee" from Sinbad (lyrics by Irving Caesar), " Embraceable You" from Girl Crazy (lyrics by Ira Gershwin), " Someone to Watch Over Me" from Oh, Kay! (lyrics by Ira Gershwin), "Bess, You is My Woman Now" from Porgy and Bess (lyrics by DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin), An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue. The Gershwin Initiative". University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance. 2013 . Retrieved August 30, 2015. But Whiteman twisted Gershwin's arm that all he had to do was supply a piano score. Ferde Grofé, Whiteman’s brilliant in-house arranger, would be able to orchestrate the work tailored to the band’s line-up. As Gershwin did not have sufficient knowledge of orchestration in 1924, [54] Whiteman's pianist and chief arranger Ferde Grofé played a key role in the rhapsody's meteoric success, [55] and scholars have contended that Grofé's arrangements of the Rhapsody secured its place in American culture. [56] Gershwin's biographer, Isaac Goldberg, noted in 1931 that Grofé played a crucial role in the premiere's triumph: