An American in Paris

It may not seem obvious at first to associate the term “symphonic poem” with the American composer George Gershwin, but it is possible to discover an explicitly narrative level beneath the rousing rhythms and tonal colours of his An American in Paris. Gershwin describes his impressions of the city in which he had attempted to enrol in a college which would permit him to study with Nadia Boulanger and Maurice Ravel. His intense fascination with the French capital is also tinged with the emotions of personal setbacks and homesickness for New York: “My purpose here is to portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises, and absorbs the French atmosphere. Our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café, and having a few drinks, has suddenly succumbed to a spasm of homesickness. Apparently the homesick American, having left the café and reached the open air, has downed his spell of the blues and once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life. At the conclusion, the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant.”
Gershwin had made his own orchestration for An American in Paris in contrast to his other stage works. A special feature of his orchestration for the first performance was the inclusion of four taxi horns which he had specially brought over from Paris for this purpose.
Frank Campbell-Watson was able to retouch a few errors in instrumentation (such as some impractical changes of instruments) in his revised edition from the 1940’s.