Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture
George Gershwin (1898-1937) Arranged by Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981)
(1) Scene in Catfish Row; strawberry woman; crab man; (2) Opening Act 3: “Clara, Clara”; (3) Opening Act 1; (4) Summertime; (5) I got plenty o’ nuttin’; (6) Storm music; (7) Bess, you is my woman now; (8) The picnic party; (9) There’s a boat dat’s leavin’ soon for New York; (10) It ain’t necessarily so; (11) Finale (Oh, Lawd, I’m on my way)
George Gershwin’s opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ was premièred in New York in the autumn of 1935. With a cast of classically-trained African Americans, it created a sensation and a welter of criticism as well, led by those who judged the work to be patronising and racist. A more lasting controversy was the question as to whether ‘Porgy and Bess’ was an opera at all – a matter unresolved until 1976 when the Houston Grand Opera mounted a hugely successful production that established it as an undisputed masterpiece of the genre. Opera it may be, but it behaves like a musical, with spoken passages and a succession of ‘hits’, somewhat akin to Georges Bizet’s Carmen or Leonard Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’. It is the ‘hits’ that encouraged Gershwin and others to offer the music in different guises. This ‘Symphonic Picture’ is one of them.
The gramophone industry was firmly established by the time of its composition. The most popular format of recording was the 78 rpm disc accommodating four minutes of music on each side. The conductor, Fritz Reiner, who commissioned the ‘Symphonic Picture’, insisted it should last exactly 24 minutes: three 78 rpm discs, in other words. Thus was the work born out of commerce. Neither Reiner nor Gershwin needed help in selling the music. According to the on-line encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, ‘Summertime’ alone has been recorded in over 33,000 versions by various singers and instrumental groups. (That averages out at rather more than one per day since its first performance in 1943 – a touch of Wikipedian hyperbole, perhaps.)
Robert Russell Bennett, who made this arrangement, retained Gershwin’s orchestrations as found in the opera for the most part, but omitted the piano altogether: a bold decision in any work by Gershwin. He was responsible for the choice and order of the numbers in this instrumental version. Cut down to 24 minutes and shorn of voices and piano, a new and appealing work emerged. The selection includes the best-known numbers from the opera, but with a change of emphasis. For example ‘Summertime’ appears four times in the opera but only once here. Conceived as the ‘perfect’ blues song, expressing the hardship and woe of the story’s protagonists, it is retained for its spell-binding melody and harmony, its story-telling function having been jettisoned. That applies to the other titles also. This is not a symphonic poem retelling the narrative of the drama. Much more, it is a reminder of its musical treasures, at the same time recalling the atmosphere and energy of ‘Catfish Row’.
George Gershwin (1898-1937) Arranged by Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981)
(1) Scene in Catfish Row; strawberry woman; crab man; (2) Opening Act 3: “Clara, Clara”; (3) Opening Act 1; (4) Summertime; (5) I got plenty o’ nuttin’; (6) Storm music; (7) Bess, you is my woman now; (8) The picnic party; (9) There’s a boat dat’s leavin’ soon for New York; (10) It ain’t necessarily so; (11) Finale (Oh, Lawd, I’m on my way)
George Gershwin’s opera ‘Porgy and Bess’ was premièred in New York in the autumn of 1935. With a cast of classically-trained African Americans, it created a sensation and a welter of criticism as well, led by those who judged the work to be patronising and racist. A more lasting controversy was the question as to whether ‘Porgy and Bess’ was an opera at all – a matter unresolved until 1976 when the Houston Grand Opera mounted a hugely successful production that established it as an undisputed masterpiece of the genre. Opera it may be, but it behaves like a musical, with spoken passages and a succession of ‘hits’, somewhat akin to Georges Bizet’s Carmen or Leonard Bernstein’s ‘West Side Story’. It is the ‘hits’ that encouraged Gershwin and others to offer the music in different guises. This ‘Symphonic Picture’ is one of them.
The gramophone industry was firmly established by the time of its composition. The most popular format of recording was the 78 rpm disc accommodating four minutes of music on each side. The conductor, Fritz Reiner, who commissioned the ‘Symphonic Picture’, insisted it should last exactly 24 minutes: three 78 rpm discs, in other words. Thus was the work born out of commerce. Neither Reiner nor Gershwin needed help in selling the music. According to the on-line encyclopaedia, Wikipedia, ‘Summertime’ alone has been recorded in over 33,000 versions by various singers and instrumental groups. (That averages out at rather more than one per day since its first performance in 1943 – a touch of Wikipedian hyperbole, perhaps.)
Robert Russell Bennett, who made this arrangement, retained Gershwin’s orchestrations as found in the opera for the most part, but omitted the piano altogether: a bold decision in any work by Gershwin. He was responsible for the choice and order of the numbers in this instrumental version. Cut down to 24 minutes and shorn of voices and piano, a new and appealing work emerged. The selection includes the best-known numbers from the opera, but with a change of emphasis. For example ‘Summertime’ appears four times in the opera but only once here. Conceived as the ‘perfect’ blues song, expressing the hardship and woe of the story’s protagonists, it is retained for its spell-binding melody and harmony, its story-telling function having been jettisoned. That applies to the other titles also. This is not a symphonic poem retelling the narrative of the drama. Much more, it is a reminder of its musical treasures, at the same time recalling the atmosphere and energy of ‘Catfish Row’.