"Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin

Rhapsody in Blue was George Gershwin's first extended work, written hastily for performance at a special evening of Big Band Jazz entitled An American Experiment in Modern Music by the Paul Whiteman Orchestra in New York City's Aeolian Hall in February of 1924. The original scoring of the work for Whiteman's band, which included strings was done by Ferde Grofe and published in 1926, with an orchestral version that followed, though it was not published until 1942. Gershwin was given the commission just five weeks before the concert, and Grofe did not receive a copy of the two-piano score until just over two weeks before the performance. Grofe still managed to complete his orchestration with eight days to spare.

Gershwin claimed to have entirely conceived the piece riding on a train from Boston to New York on December 23, 1923, but in fact, the slow theme (United Airlines used this theme for many years) came to him while playing piano at a friend's party a couple of days later. His brother Ira recalls George speaking about the piece to him and provided this quote to be used in a proposed 1985 film by the director Paul Schrader: "You start with an ice-breaker, an ascending clarinet to get the attention, to start to engine. Just after the first theme, four bars in, I stress an unaccented beat. First bump in the road. Same thing two bars later, but fool with the harmony, too. The second bump is also the first turn! With the second theme, five bars later, you're on your way with the scenery all blue and jazzy - but where are you headed? Keep changing keys, turn, detour seven times before hitting the straightaway A Major, like the cycle of fifths ragtime players use. Meantime, I am pitting four notes against three, so you feel like you are accelerating all the time. Add a few classical conventions and you feel like you are listening to Tchaikovsky or Liszt. It's a rhythm for our time. Not just pep. Our pulse."

Brother Ira, who was his lyricist, also claims to have convinced George to change the title from American Rhapsody to Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin kept apologizing to the musicians as the piece was rehearsed that he had hoped to have more time to create a more polished work, but the musicians and their leader, Paul Whiteman, loved the piece. In fact, the importance of its premiere has been likened to that of Gershwin's Hollywood friend Arnold Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring.

Program Notes by Dan Locklair