{"id":101,"date":"2015-01-16T19:46:20","date_gmt":"2015-01-16T19:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/rhapsody-blue\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:39:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T18:39:15","slug":"rhapsody-blue","status":"publish","type":"program_note","link":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/program_note\/rhapsody-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhapsody in Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"

George Gershwin was arguably the most successful and talented of America\u2019s composers of popular music.\u00a0 His songs constitute the core of the \u201cAmerican Songbook,\u201d whether composed as part of his immensely successful Broadway shows, or as stand alone popular tunes.\u00a0 Born of Russian Jewish immigrants, he didn\u2019t evince his formidable musical talents until about the age of ten, when a piano was purchased for his older brother and later collaborator, Ira.\u00a0 \u00a0Much to the latter\u2019s relief, George soon commandeered the piano, and the rest is, as they say, history.\u00a0\u00a0 His audiences rewarded him substantially\u2014he is estimated to have become the wealthiest composer in modern times.\u00a0\u00a0 He earned over a quarter of a million dollars for\u00a0Rhapsody in Blue\u00a0<\/em>during the first decade of its life, and it still is bringing in the bucks, as witnessed by the commercials for United Airlines.<\/p>\n

Rhapsody in Blue\u00a0<\/em>was written in great haste for a 1924 concert in New York\u2019s Aeolian Hall given by Paul Whiteman\u2013billed as \u201cAn Experiment in Modern Music.\u201d\u00a0 Notwithstanding the description, you wouldn\u2019t have heard Stravinsky or Schoenberg that night, but rather Irving Berlin, Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, and others of that ilk.\u00a0\u00a0 However, Jascha Heifetz, Sergei Rachmaninov, and other luminaries of music were in the audience. The poster read that Whiteman would be \u201cassisted by Zez Confrey and George Gershwin\u201d\u2014notice that the composer of \u201cKitten on the Keys\u201d and \u201cDizzy Fingers\u201d received top billing over the young Gershwin.\u00a0 Gershwin had been asked late in 1923 to write a piece for the Whiteman orchestra, but he had turned his attention to more pressing matters, and was horrified to read in the\u00a0New York Tribune\u00a0<\/em>on the 4th<\/sup>\u00a0of January, 1924 that he was to premi\u00e8re a \u201cjazz concerto\u201d on February 12.\u00a0 Gershwin plunged in and presented his brilliant succession of \u201cAmerican\u201d themes to Ferde Grof\u00e9, Whiteman\u2019s orchestrator, to arrange for large jazz band and piano\u00a0 (the symphonic version came later)\u2014Gershwin didn\u2019t have the skill to do this at this point in his career. The composition opened the second half of the concert, with Gershwin as soloist\u2014using no music, and probably considerably \u201cenhancing\u201d the solo part.\u00a0\u00a0 The opening clarinet glissando, evocative of traditional Jewish Klezmer music, kicked it off, and the now-familiar tunes came rushing by.\u00a0 While\u00a0Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>\u00a0really is not \u201cjazz,\u201d and certainly not a concerto in the traditional sense, Gershwin turned out a masterpiece that is exemplary of what came to be called \u201csymphonic jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is helpful in placing the context of this composition is the importance of so-called \u201cserious\u201d or \u201cclassical\u201d musical interests and training in Gershwin\u2019s life that is quite unprecedented for someone who enjoyed his kind of success.\u00a0 He certainly was not some sort of untutored musical genius who later sought \u201clegitimacy\u201d after having proven himself in the popular world.\u00a0\u00a0 Rather, early on, as a young boy he studied and performed under traditional piano teachers the music of composers such as Chopin, Liszt, and Debussy.\u00a0 Later, he journeyed to Paris to study under the famed teacher of composition, Nadia Boulanger, as well as Maurice Ravel. However, both demurred, more or less afraid to compromise the unique genius evident in his burgeoning success.\u00a0 While in Paris he met and admired the music of eminent composers such as Prokofiev, Poulenc, and Milhaud. Gershwin\u2019s ambitions were such, that long after he had achieved the kind of success that any popular composer would have envied, he assiduously studied formal composition with established teachers.\u00a0\u00a0 And he was successful.\u00a0\u00a0 His\u00a0Rhapsody in Blue<\/em>, the Concerto in F,\u00a0An American in Paris<\/em>, and\u00a0Porgy and Bess<\/em>\u00a0are masterpieces of his unique bridging of the so-called gap between popular art and \u201chigh\u201d art.<\/p>\n

–Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 William E. Runyan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"program_note_tax":[49],"class_list":["post-101","program_note","type-program_note","status-publish","hentry","program_note_tax-georgegershwin"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/program_note"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"program_note_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.runyanprogramnotes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/program_note_tax?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}