:Rhapsody in Blue
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Rhapsody in Blue was composed in 1924 as a showpiece for solo piano and jazz band, combining elements of classical music with jazz-based effects. The composition was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé three times, in 1924, in 1926, and finally in 1942. It received its première in a concert entitled An Experiment in Modern Music in Aeolian Hall, New York, given by Paul Whiteman and his band. Gershwin played the solo piano part, improvising some passages in the concert.
The piece was written at high speed, the inspiration coming from a train journey to Boston:
…with its steely rhythms, its rattlety-bang… I suddenly heard - and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the rhapsody from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.
It earns the title Rhapsody on two counts. First, it consists of a single movement, unlike a concerto which most often comprises three movements. Second, it is episodic in character, indeed ‘rhapsodic’. It offers a sort of musical stream of consciousness, going where it will. Some critics have been uncomfortable with this. Leonard Bernstein, who admired the piece greatly, wrote ‘The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together. The themes are terrific – inspired, God-given. … (but you) … can cut parts of it without affecting the whole. … It can be a five-minute piece or a twelve-minute piece.’
Perhaps the most famous element of the Rhapsody is the opening clarinet glissando. It’s not what Gershwin wrote. He asked for a rapid chromatic scale, but the clarinetist in Whiteman’s band inserted the glissando as a joke during a rehearsal. ‘Keep it in’, said Gershwin, and overnight his career was assured.
George Gershwin (1898-1937)
Rhapsody in Blue was composed in 1924 as a showpiece for solo piano and jazz band, combining elements of classical music with jazz-based effects. The composition was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé three times, in 1924, in 1926, and finally in 1942. It received its première in a concert entitled An Experiment in Modern Music in Aeolian Hall, New York, given by Paul Whiteman and his band. Gershwin played the solo piano part, improvising some passages in the concert.
The piece was written at high speed, the inspiration coming from a train journey to Boston:
…with its steely rhythms, its rattlety-bang… I suddenly heard - and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the rhapsody from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness.
It earns the title Rhapsody on two counts. First, it consists of a single movement, unlike a concerto which most often comprises three movements. Second, it is episodic in character, indeed ‘rhapsodic’. It offers a sort of musical stream of consciousness, going where it will. Some critics have been uncomfortable with this. Leonard Bernstein, who admired the piece greatly, wrote ‘The Rhapsody is not a composition at all. It's a string of separate paragraphs stuck together. The themes are terrific – inspired, God-given. … (but you) … can cut parts of it without affecting the whole. … It can be a five-minute piece or a twelve-minute piece.’
Perhaps the most famous element of the Rhapsody is the opening clarinet glissando. It’s not what Gershwin wrote. He asked for a rapid chromatic scale, but the clarinetist in Whiteman’s band inserted the glissando as a joke during a rehearsal. ‘Keep it in’, said Gershwin, and overnight his career was assured.