Tagged with 'George Gershwin'

George Gershwin is a popular name on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day programs. Excerpts from his stage works are often played, such as Porgy and Bess, A Symphonic Picture. These days, for example, it can be heard in France in concerts by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg with conductor Wayne Marshall and in Denmark with Copenhagen Phil under the direction of Joel Sandelson. 

Back to the Gershwin origin! On the occasion of George Gershwin's 125th birthday, the Ludwigsburg Festival Orchestra will perform the German premiere of An American in Paris in Ludwigsburg on July 22nd 2023. Ryan McAdams will be the conductor.

Since its world premiere in 1924, George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue has become one of the most famous symphonic works of the 20th century, and features regularly in the programmes of orchestras around the world. On 21 July, at the Klassik Open Air in the Luitpoldhain in Nuremberg, Joana Mallwitz conducts the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg and pianist, Michail Lifits, in a performance of this iconic work.



Towards the end of 1923, famous band leader Paul Whiteman asked Gershwin, who until then had mainly been writing works for Broadway, if he would write a new symphonic jazz work. He requested that the new work be “an experiment in modern music” through which Whiteman and his orchestra could fuse jazz and classical music. It wasn’t until Whiteman informed the press about the new work that Gershwin in fact accepted the commission and started composing the piece.

Nevertheless, Gershwin quickly completed a version of the work for two pianos with annotations for the instrumentation, which was then orchestrated by Whiteman´s arranger Ferde Grofé. At the world premiere of the Rhapsody in Blue on 12 February 1924, Gershwin himself played the piano to an audience which included Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Rachmaninov, and Fritz Kreisler.

As Whiteman’s orchestra frequently performed in various instrumentations, Grofé produced many different orchestrations of Rhapsody in Blue. While this has made it impossible to reconstruct the original orchestration from the work’s premiere, a version for Jazz-Band, which is based on the George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition is understood to come close. The work’s success led to a number of published versions many of which are available at Schott Music.

George Gershwin: Rhapsody in Blue – Symphonic Jazz for the concert hall

I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. - George Gershwin

Gershwin’s kaleidoscope is expressed in different melodies, which correspond in a rhapsodic open sequence, interrupted frequently by soloistic piano parts. Many chromatic grace notes and accentuated syncopations are just a few of the stylistic mannerisms taken from Jazz music which are intertwined with the language of the orchestra.

Further to the performance in Nuremberg, Rhapsody in Blue will also be performed on 21 July by the Royal Northern College of Music Manchester at the Piazza Grande in Italian Montepulciano. Many of Gershwin’s orchestral works enjoy immense popularity in concert programmes. Audiences at an Open-Air concert at the opera festival in Munich on 20 July will have the opportunity to hear An American in Paris and Gershwin’s Cuban Overture.

• George Gershwin - profile


• Rhapsody in Blue - work details


• Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

On 16 July, the Festival Napa Valley presents Embraceable You and I Got Rhythm from George Gershwin’s musical Girl Crazy with Kathleen Battle, Joel Revzen conducting Festival Orchestra NAPA.



Based on the libretto by Guy Bolton und John McGowan, Girl Crazy tells the story of Danny Churchill, an entertainer from New York who falls for the woman of his dreams, a postwoman named Molly Gray, after his father sends him to a ranch in Arizona. Nonetheless Danny longs for a sinful life, and turns the ranch into a night club and casino. Despite the ensuing chaos of conspiracies, robbery and pursuits, Molly and Danny manage to find their way back to each other.

George Gershwin’s Girl Crazy – a musical with jazz standards

Embraceable You was written in 1928 and was originally meant for the unpublished operetta, East is West. Two years later, Gershwin used the song as a romantic serenade in Girl Crazy. I Got Rhythm was also composed earlier, developing out of a slow instrumental piece from Gershwin’s previous work Treasure Girl (1928). The songs are now some of the most popular jazz standards, which shot singers like Ginger Rogers and Ethel Merman (who played the role of Kate Fothergill, a singer in Danny’s night club) to stardom overnight.

It was the first time I’d met George Gershwin, and if I may say so without seeming sacrilegious, to me it was like meeting God. Imagine the great Gershwin sitting down and playing his songs for Ethel Agnes Zimmermann, of Astoria, Long Island. No wonder I was tongue-tied. When he played ‘I Got Rhythm’ he told me: ‘If there’s anything about this you don’t like, I’ll be happy to change it.’ There was nothing about that song I didn’t like. But that’s the kind of guy he was. I’ll never forget it. – Ethel Merman

I Got Rhythm can be heard again on 16 July by the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra in Louisiana. The work will also be featured in an arrangement by William C. Schoenfeld for piano and orchestra, I Got Rhythm Variations, at a gala performance by the Hamburg Ballet on 17 July.

Further performances of Gershwin’s works this month include Rhapsody in Blue on 11 July performed by Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille and Faycaol Karoui. On 12, 13 and 15 July the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival presents performances of Rhapsody in Blue and Cuban Ouverture. The latter work will also be performed by the SWR Sinfonieorchester in Freiburg on 16 July and in Evian by the orchestra of Académie Musicale d’Evian conducted by Bruno Peterschmitt on the same day.

• George Gershwin - profile


• Girl Crazy: Embraceable You - workdetails


• Girl Crazy: I Got Rhythm - workdetails


• Girl Crazy: I Got Rhythm Variations - workdetails