![]() ![]() Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky are on record as being inspired by Gershwin, and no less than Arnold Schoenberg praised the American for his unique way with rhythm, melody and harmony: “Gershwin is an artist and a composer - he expressed musical ideas, and they were new, as is the way he expressed them.” In his own way, Gershwin was a modernist, saying: “True music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. He was appreciated by European classical composers for his individuality and freshness. Then there are his oft-performed orchestral tone poem An American in Paris and his Piano Concerto in F, which Gershwin premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1925 with himself as soloist. ![]() ![]() He composed perhaps the country’s most iconic orchestral work, Rhapsody in Blue (1924), as well as the signature American opera, Porgy and Bess (1935) and he wrote the music to songs that are as indelible as any written in the era of Tin Pan Alley: “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (from Porgy and Bess), “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Embraceable You,” “The Man I Love,” “Love Walked In,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “S’Wonderful,” “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and on and on, many penned for hit shows on Broadway. Photos courtesy of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts.ĭespite his abbreviated life, George Gershwin (1898–1937) - born Jacob Bruskin Gershowitz in 1898, in Brooklyn - crafted an epochal body of work, encompassing not only a group of compositions but also a stylistic imprint as influential as that of any other American composer. ![]()
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