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Portrait of George Gershwin

Music

George Gershwin

1898–1937 · American

American modernism / jazz-influenced classical and popular song

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist who moved between Tin Pan Alley, Broadway and the concert hall. With his brother Ira as lyricist he wrote countless standards, and in Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess he fused jazz and blues with classical forms. He died of a brain tumour aged 38.

How to spot them

  • ▸Rhapsody in Blue opens with a solo clarinet trill that swoops up in a long, wailing glissando into a bluesy tune
  • ▸Syncopated jazz rhythms, blue notes and big-band colours in a concert-hall setting — piano, saxophones, muted trumpets
  • ▸An American in Paris uses real taxi horns and a lazy, muted-trumpet blues to depict a homesick tourist
  • ▸Sultry, bluesy song melodies such as "Summertime" from Porgy and Bess

Key works — listen

Rhapsody in Blue (1924)

Premiered by Paul Whiteman's orchestra with Gershwin at the piano; orchestrated by Ferde Grofé

Recording: George Gershwin and Paul Whiteman Orchestra · Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

An American in Paris (1928)

Tone poem with taxi horns; later inspired the 1951 Gene Kelly film

Porgy and Bess (1935)

Folk opera set in Catfish Row, Charleston, after DuBose Heyward's novel Porgy

Summertime (1935)

Lullaby aria from Porgy and Bess and one of the most recorded songs ever

Concerto in F (1925)

Full three-movement piano concerto commissioned by Walter Damrosch

Quick-fire facts

  • •Rhapsody in Blue premiered on 12 February 1924 at Aeolian Hall, New York, in Paul Whiteman's concert "An Experiment in Modern Music"
  • •The famous opening clarinet glissando of Rhapsody in Blue was developed by Whiteman's clarinettist Ross Gorman in rehearsal
  • •His brother Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics for most of his songs
  • •He started out as a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley
  • •"I Got Rhythm" (from Girl Crazy, 1930) gave jazz its "rhythm changes" chord progression
  • •Of Thee I Sing (1931) was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, awarded to Ira Gershwin and the book writers
  • •He died of a brain tumour in Hollywood in 1937, aged 38
  • •Rhapsody in Blue became the long-running advertising theme of United Airlines

Drill it — 9 cards

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Sources