George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned both popular and classical genres. George lived a boyhood not unusual in New York tenements, which included running around with his friends, roller-skating and misbehaving in the streets. Until 1908, he cared nothing about music. Then as a ten-year-old, he was intrigued upon hearing his friend Maxie Rosenzweig’s violin recital. The sound, and the way his friend played, captivated him. At about the same time, George’s parents had bought a piano for his older brother Ira. To his parents’ surprise, though, and to Ira’s relief, it was George who spent more time playing it as he continued to enjoy it.
In 1916, Gershwin started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York, recording and arranging. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and assumed names (pseudonyms attributed to Gershwin include Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn). He also recorded rolls of his own compositions for the Duo-Art reproducing pianos. As well as recording piano rolls, Gershwin made a brief foray into vaudeville. His 1917 novelty ragtime, “Rialto Ripples”, was a commercial success. In 1919 he scored his first big national hit with his song “Swanee,” with words by Irving Caesar. Al Jolson, a famous singer of the day, heard Gershwin perform “Swanee” at a party and decided to sing it in one of his shows.
In 1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue, for orchestra and piano. It was premiered by Paul Whiteman’s Concert Band, in New York. It subsequently went on to be his most popular work, and established Gershwin’s signature style and genius in blending vastly different musical styles in revolutionary ways. Since the early 1920s Gershwin had frequently worked with the lyricist Buddy DeSylva. Together they created the experimental one-act jazz opera Blue Monday, set in Harlem. It is widely regarded as a forerunner to the groundbreaking Porgy and Bess. In 1924, George and Ira Gershwin collaborated on a stage musical comedy Lady Be Good, which included such future standards as “Fascinating Rhythm” as and “Oh Lady Be Good”. They followed this with Oh Kay! (1926), Funny Face (1927) and Strike Up The Band (1927 and 1930).
In the mid-1920s, Gershwin stayed in Paris for a short period of time. While there, Gershwin wrote An American In Paris. This work received mixed reviews upon its first performance at Carnegie Hall in December 1928, but it quickly became part of the standard repertoire in Europe and the United States. In 1929, the Gershwin brothers created Show Girl. The following year brought Girl Crazy, which introduced the standards “Embraceable You”, debuted by Ginger Rogers, and “I Got Rhythm”. 1931’s Of Thee I Sing became the first musical comedy to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Gershwin spent the summer of 1934 on Folly Island in South Carolina after he was invited to visit by the author of the novel Porgy, DuBose Heyward. He was inspired to write the music to his opera Porgy and Bess while on this working vacation. Porgy and Bess was considered another American classic by the composer of Rhapsody in Blue — even if critics could not quite figure out how to evaluate it, or decide whether it was opera or simply an ambitious Broadway musical. “It crossed the barriers,” per theater historian Robert Kimball. “It wasn’t a musical work per se, and it wasn’t a drama per se – it elicited response from both music and drama critics. But the work has sort of always been outside category.” After the commercial failure of Porgy and Bess, Gershwin moved to Hollywood, California. In 1936, he was commissioned by RKO Pictures to write the music for the film Shall We Dance, starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Gershwin’s extended score, which would marry ballet with jazz in a new way, runs over an hour in length. It took Gershwin several months to compose and orchestrate.
Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he smelled burning rubber. On February 11, 1937, he performed his Piano Concerto in F in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux. Gershwin, normally a superb pianist in his own compositions, suffered coordination problems and blackouts during the performance. On the night of July 9, 1937 Gershwin collapsed in Harburg’s house, where he had been working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies. He was rushed to Cedars of Lebanon hospital and fell into a coma. Only then did his doctors come to believe that he was suffering from a brain tumour. In the early hours of July 11, doctors at Cedars removed a large brain tumour, but Gershwin died on the morning of Sunday, July 11, 1937, at the age of 38.
I have decided to leave Summertime from Porgy and Bess, which may be the best known of all Gershwin’s songs, to another occasion in order that I might look at the various ways in which it has been performed. So I’ll leave you with ‘It Ain’t Neccessarily So’ a song which I performed in a talent contest at Butlins at the age of about 8.
