A Gershwin Valentine

George Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz in 1898 to Russian Jewish immigrant parents in New York. The family bought a piano to encourage the oldest child, Ira, in music but it was George, just two years younger, who took to the instrument and began to play by ear around the age of twelve. His first significant teacher, Charles Hambitzer, wrote to a friend about the precocious talent, “I have a new pupil who will make a mark in music if anybody will. The boy is a genius, without a doubt. . . He wants to go in for this modern music – jazz. . . . but I’ll see that he gets a foundation in the standard music first.” Despite his teacher’s best efforts, Gershwin’s Olympic talent for popular music outran his schooling in the ‘standard music.’ George left school at fifteen to work as a pianist on New York’s Tin Pan Alley, plugging songs for the publisher Remick while writing his own songs on the side. Over the next five years he took on various musical jobs, touring as an accompanist on the vaudeville circuit and arranging and recording piano rolls. He published his first song in 1916 and completed a Broadway show in 1917, all with enough success to gain him modest recognition. Then in 1919 Al Jolson heard Gershwin’s song, Swanee and added it to his touring show. Swanee was a tremendous hit which sold over two million records its first year.

It wasn’t until 1924 that George teamed up with his brother Ira, an immensely talented lyricist in his own right, to create the show Lady, Be Good! Their collaboration produced a string of Broadway and Hollywood successes and became one of the most influential forces in American Musical Theater. Despite his success writing songs, Gershwin was well aware of his lack of formal composition training. Throughout his career he was eager to improve his craft and sought out lessons with several distinguished European composers. Maurice Ravel’s reply to the eager young American is now often quoted as a tribute to innate talent: “Why be a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” Nonetheless, Gershwin worked all his life for respect in the world of what he termed ‘serious’ music, and his drive to improve his art produced the unique symphonic works on today’s program.
A small item on the amusement page of the January 4, 1924 New York Tribune read “Whiteman Judges Named - Committee Will Decide ‘What Is American Music.”  The article described a concert planned by popular bandleader Paul Whiteman, an “Experiment in Modern Music,” to explore what he called "symphonic Jazz," a fusion of classical and popular styles. With judges including Sergei Rachmaninoff and Jascha Heifetz, the “Experiment” was a somewhat pretentious affair and a mixed success. Many of the 25 pieces on the program were weak, probably written more in response to Whiteman’s marketing skills than to any strong musical inspiration. But after nearly four hours the restless audience got its reward  - a piece that proved that the rhythmic drive and raw energy of popular music could work hand-in-glove with the grand expressive power of the symphony orchestra.  The 24th piece on that night’s program, Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, has been a hit ever since.

The concert on February 12, 1924 was a career-making event for the young composer and marked the beginning of a metamorphosis from Broadway songwriter to ‘serious’ musician. The Rhapsody had to be written quickly. Whiteman had spoken to Gershwin only of a possible commission, so the composer was shocked to read in the January 4th newspaper article that “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto . . .” Already committed to be in Boston for a new show,  “it was on the train,” Gershwin later said, “with its steely rhythms, its rattly-bang (I frequently hear music in the very heart of noise), that I suddenly heard . . . the complete construction of the Rhapsody from beginning to end.” The piece is a development of the ragtime and blues that were popular at the time. It fits no known form in either classical or jazz, but is truly rhapsodic – reflective and improvisational in the lyrical passages, fiery and physical in the rhythmic ones. Gershwin wrote, “There had been so much chatter about the limitations of jazz. . . It had to be in strict time.  It had to cling to dance rhythms. I resolved, if possible, to kill that misconception with one sturdy blow.” But Gershwin was never a true jazz musician and early jazz is just part of the Rhapsody’s unique character. Rhapsody in Blue is one-of-a-kind Americana, a shout for joy from the twenties, a cry of “Eureka” from a musical pioneer who has made the discovery of the century.

Apart from the judges, other luminaries who attended the Whiteman concert included Stokowski, Mengelberg, Herbert, Kreisler and Walter Damrosch, a conductor who soon asked Gershwin to write a full-fledged piano concerto for his New York Symphony. The result was Gershwin’s Concerto in F, given its impressive premiere in December, 1925.  Musicians and audiences were delighted with the piece. It seems Gershwin’s talent allowed him to soak up much of the composition training he had missed. He later wrote: “Many persons had thought that the Rhapsody was only a happy accident. Well, I went out, for one thing, to show them that there was more where that came from.”

Successful musicals continued to be the Gershwins’ bread and butter until 1928, when they traveled to Europe for a few months. George began work on an orchestral piece he had conceived during an earlier trip, a tone-poem that would depict the charm and bustle of Parisian life. He completed his sketch in August, 1928 and in December American in Paris was heard for the first time with Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony. Gershwin’s signature style will always reflect New York, but Paris captivated the young American composer and its spell can be heard in the amiable pace, the bubbling joy, the warmth and humor of the music. For the rich bluesy middle section Gershwin imagined that the American visitor had had a few drinks at a café and succumbed to a “spasm of homesickness.” Although Gershwin’s comments about his orchestra music could be rather academic - he said An American in Paris “ . . . is the most modern music I’ve yet attempted. The opening part will be developed in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and the Six, though the themes are all original.” - the music itself is so evocative that it inspired the 1951 film An American in Paris starring Gene Kelly. It won six of the eight Oscars for which it was nominated.
The early thirties saw continued Broadway successes for the Gershwins, including Girl Crazy in 1930, with its hit songs But Not for Me,  Embraceable You, and I Got Rhythm. Opening night featured a star-studded cast, with Ginger Rodgers, Ethel Merman and Willie Howard on stage, and Red Nichols, Benny Goodman, Glen Miller and Gene Krupa in the pit. In 1932 Of Thee I Sing became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize, for its treatment of serious social and political themes. With the film industry booming in Hollywood, it was inevitable that the Gershwins would be summoned to write for the Silver Screen, starting with The King of Jazz in 1930.  Their creativity did not falter in the new medium and they turned out stunning music for many of the eras biggest stars, including Fred Astaire, Ginger Rodgers and Bing Crosby. 

Amid the success and glamour of Hollywood life, Gershwin’s ambitions in ‘serious music’ continued to grow. For ten years he had contemplated the idea of writing an American opera:  its composition would now occupy him for almost two years. His choice of subject was extraordinary. Having worked in a world of popular music that owed much of its vitality to African-American jazz, he saw in DuBose Heyward’s play Porgy, which dealt with Negro life in a Charleston ghetto, an exotic subject that was also central to American society. In the summer of 1934 Gershwin took up residence in a waterfront shack near Charleston and spent his time visiting farms, churches and stores - anywhere where he could get the sound of Negro music in his ears. Gershwin then wrote his own spirituals and folk songs, adapting his method of composition to “utilize the drama, the humor, the superstition, the religious fervor, the dancing, and the irrepressible high spirits of the race . . .” Porgy and Bess opened in New York on October 10th, 1935 to broad audience approval, but critical opinion was mixed. Virgil Thompson called the work “A fake . . . crooked folklore and halfway opera, a strong but crippled work.” While a review such as this from an esteemed critic of ‘serious music’ must have hurt Gershwin and dampened his aspirations, the enduring popularity and posthumous critical approval of Porgy has more than vindicated Gershwin’s most ambitious work.

George Gershwin’s death of a brain tumor just short of his 39th birthday stunned all America. The novelist John O'Hara summarized the general state of shock when he said, I don't have to believe it if I don't want to.’ In a brief career Gershwin left hundreds of unforgettable songs and a respectable number of symphonic compositions, uniquely successful examples of ‘crossover’ between popular and symphonic music. Seventy years later, he is more popular than ever, recorded by artists as diverse as Itzhak Perlman and Sting. His universal appeal has given his pieces a sort of ‘American Classic’ brand recognition that in turn has made his music a first choice for use in films and commercials. His music not only defined the spirit of his time, it has stayed with future generations as an expression of something uniquely and wonderfully American. Smart and down to earth, lyrical and rhythmic, sad and buoyant, it is the product of a culture that moves on quickly, and for modern listeners balances nostalgia with optimism and and an eagerness for what lies just around the corner. It has represented America to the rest of the world, and represented us well.
Shortly after Gershwin’s death in 1937, Arnold Schoenberg spoke these words of tribute in a memorial radio broadcast.  “Music was the air he breathed . . . Directness of this kind is given only to great men, and there is no doubt he was a great composer.  What he achieved was not only to the benefit of American music but also a contribution to the music of the whole world.” Schoenberg is widely recognized as twentieth century classical music’s most ‘serious’ composer.                                                                 

-- Arthur Post