The George Gershwin Reader

by Robert Wyatt (Editor), John Andrew Johnson (Editor)

Overview

George Gershwin is one of the giants of American music, unique in that he was both a brilliant writer of popular songs and of more serious music. Here, music lovers are treated to a spectacular celebration of this great American composer. The Reader offers a kaleidoscopic collection of writings by Gershwin, as well as those about Gershwin, written by a who's who of famous commentators. More than eighty pieces of superb variety, color, and depth include the critical debate over Gershwin's concert pieces, especially "Rhapsody in Blue" and "An American in Paris." There is a complete section devoted to the controversies over "Porgy and Bess," including correspondence between Gershwin and DuBose Hayward, the opera's librettist, plus unique interviews with the original Porgy and Bess--Todd Duncan and Anne Brown. Sprinkled throughout the book are excerpts from Gershwin's own letters, which offer unique insight into this fascinating and charming man. Along with a detailed chronology of the composer's life, the editors provide informative introductions to each entry. Here is a book for anyone interested in American music. Scholars, performers, and Gershwin's legions of fans will find it an irresistible feast.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198029854
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/12/2004
Series:	Readers on American Musicians
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Robert Wyatt is a concert pianist and Gershwin authority who is now Executive Director of the Cape Cod Conservatory of Music. John Andrew Johnson is Assistant Professor of Musicology in the Department of Fine Arts at Syracuse University.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments     IX
Introduction     XI
Portraits of the Artist     1
Ira Gershwin: "In person, my brother was a good deal like his music" (1961)     3
Frances Gershwin Godowsky: "George Gershwin Was My Brother" (1962)     3
Kay Swift: "Did you ever feel that a composer resembled his music?" (ca. 1970)     6
Oscar Levant: "Variations on a Gershwin Theme" (1939)     7
Verna Arvey: "George Gershwin Through the Eyes of a Friend" (1948)     20
"Gershwin Bros." (1925)     25
Isaac Goldberg: "Childhood of a Composer" (1931)     27
The Growing Limelight (1919-1924)     37
George Gershwin: Letter to Max Abramson (1918)     39
Dolly Dalrymple: "Pianist, Playing Role of Columbus, Makes Another American Discovery: Beryl Rubinstein Says This Country Possesses Genius Composer" (1922)     41
George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (February 18, 1923)     42
"Whiteman Judges Named: Committee Will Decide 'What Is American Music'" (1924)     44
Paul Whiteman and Mary Margaret McBride: "An Experiment" (1926)     45
Olin Downes: "A Concert of Jazz" (1924)     49
Carl Van Vechten: Letter to George Gershwin (February 14, 1924)     52
James Ross Moore: "The Gershwins in Britain" (1994)     52
Ira Gershwin: "Which Came First?" (1959)     57
Fame and Fortune (1924-1930)     63
Philip Furia: "Lady, Be Good!" (1996)     65
Ira Gershwin: Letter to Lou and Emily Paley (November 26, 1924)     72
Alec Wilder: "That Certain Feeling" (1972)     75
Carl Van Vechten: "George Gershwin, An American Composer Who Is Writing Notable Music in the Jazz Idiom" (1925)     77
Samuel Chotzinoff: "New York Symphony at Carnegie Hall" (1925)     82
Lawrence Gilman: "Mr. George Gershwin Plays His New Jazz Concerto" (1925)     85
"Paul Whiteman Gives 'Vivid' Grand Opera; Jazz Rhythms of Gershwin's '13th Street'" (1925)     87
George Gershwin: "Our New National Anthem" (1925)     89
George Gershwin: "Jazz Is the Voice of the American Soul" (1926)     91
George Gershwin: "Does Jazz Belong to Art?" (1926)     94
George Gershwin: "Mr. Gershwin Replies to Mr. Kramer" (1926)     98
Abbe Niles: "The Ewe Lamb of Widow Jazz" (1926)     101
Carleton Sprague Smith: "d'Alvarez-Gershwin Recital" (1927)     102
Allen Forte: "Someone to Watch Over Me" (1990)     103
"George Gershwin Accepts {dollar}100,000 Movietone Offer: Fox to Pay That Sum for Film Version of Musical Comedy-Composer Gets Bid of {dollar}50,000 for Rhapsody in Blue Rights" (1928)      107
George Gershwin: Letter to Mabel Schirmer (1928)     108
Deems Taylor: "An American in Paris: Narrative Guide" (1928)     110
Olin Downes: "Gershwin's New Score Acclaimed" (1928)     112
George Gershwin: "Fifty Years of American Music...Younger Composers, Freed from European Influences, Labor Toward Achieving a Distinctive American Musical Idiom" (1929)     114
George Gershwin: "The Composer in the Machine Age" (1930)     119
Mary Herron Dupree: "'Jazz,' the Critics, and American Art Music in the 1920s" (1986)     123
Maturity (1930-1935)     131
George Gershwin: "Making Music" (1930)     133
Robert Benchley: "Satire to Music" (1930)     137
John Harkins: "George Gershwin" (1932)     138
Arthur Ruhl: "Of Thee I Sing, Kaufman-Ryskind Musical Comedy Satire at the Music Box" (1931)     143
"A Music Master Talks of His Trials" (1932)     145
Catherine Parsons Smith: From William Grant Still: A Study in Contradictions (2000)     147
Richard Crawford: "George Gershwin's 'I Got Rhythm' (1930)" (1993)     156
Allan Lincoln Langley: "The Gershwin Myth" (1932)     172
William Daly: "George Gershwin as Orchestrator" (1933)     175
Olin Downes: "George Gershwin Plays His Second Rhapsody for the First Time Here with Koussevitsky and Boston Orchestra" (1932)      177
George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (June or July 1932)     178
Alexander Woollcott: "George the Ingenuous" (1933)     179
George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1934)     184
George Gershwin: Letter to Ira Gershwin (1935)     185
Frederick Jacobi: "The Fumre of Gershwin" (1937)     186
Porgy and Bess     191
Joseph Swain: From "America's Folk Opera" (1990)     193
George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward, Selected Correspondence (1932-1934)     201
"George Gershwin Arrives to Plan Opera on Porgy" (1933)     211
Brooks Atkinson and Olin Downes: "Porgy and Bess, Native Opera, Opens at the Alvin: Gershwin's Work Based on DuBose Heyward's Play" (1935)     213
George Gershwin: "Rhapsody in Catfish Row: Mr. Gershwin Tells the Origin and Scheme for His Music in That New Folk Opera Called 'Porgy and Bess'" (1935)     217
Todd Duncan: From an Interview by Robert Wyatt (1990)     221
Anne Brown: From an interview by Robert Wyatt (1995)     228
Last Years: Hollywood (1936-1937)     237
Edith Garson: "Hollywood-An Ending" (1938)     239
Isabel Morse Jones: "Gershwin Analyzes Science of Rhythm" (1937)     244
Nanette Kutner: "Radio Pays a Debt" (1936)     246
Alec Wilder: "A Foggy Day" (1972)      250
George Gershwin: Letters to Zenna Hannenfeldt (1936)     251
George Gershwin: Letters to Mabel Schirmer (1936-1937)     254
George Gershwin: Letter to Emily Paley (1937)     259
George Gershwin: Letter to Henry Botkin (1937)     260
George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)     261
George Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)     263
George A. Pallay: Letter to Irene Gallagher (1937)     263
Obituaries and Eulogies     269
Report in Variety (1937)     271
Arnold Schoenberg: "George Gershwin" (1938)     273
Olin Downes: "Hail and Farewell: Career and Position of George Gershwin in American Music" (1937)     274
Irving Berlin: "Poem" (1938)     278
Jerome Kern: "Tribute" (1938)     279
"Gershwin Left {dollar}341,089 Estate to His Mother; 'Rhapsody in Blue' Appraised at 'Greatest Value' and Opera Rights of 'Nominal Interest' to the Residue" (1938)     280
Ira Gershwin: Letter to Rose Gershwin (1937)     281
As Time Passes     285
"Music by Slide Rule" (1944)     287
Ira Gershwin: "Gershwin on Gershwin" (1944)     289
Vernon Duke: "Gershwin, Schillinger, and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences" (1947)     289
Leonard Bernstein: "Why Don't You Run Upstairs and Write a Nice Gershwin Tune?" (1955)     293
Duke Ellington: "George Gershwin" (1973)     300
Wayne Shirley: "George Gershwin: yes, the sounds as well as the tunes are his" (1998)     301
Chronology     369
Selected Bibliography     325
Credits     333
Index     335

Editorial Reviews

Editors Wyatt (executive director, Cape Cod Conservatory of Music) and Johnson (musicology, Syracuse Univ.) have assembled a fascinating collection of articles, biographical reminiscences, reviews, musical analyses, and letters relating to the life and music of George Gershwin. Organized into seven sections that roughly follow the composer's life, the book is designed to supplement previous collections of source material, especially Edward Jablonski and Lawrence Stewart's The Gershwin Years, Jablonski's Gershwin and Gershwin Remembered, Robert Kimball and Alfred Simon's The Gershwins, and George Gershwin, edited by Merle Armitage. Most of the material is being reprinted from the original source for the first time, though several items were previously published in Gershwin books. Other information, such as taped interviews with the original leads of Porgy and Bess, have never before appeared in print. The items range from family members and friends' reminiscences, contemporary comment on Gershwin and his music, letters to and from Gershwin, several articles by Gershwin, and excerpts from books (including a delightful piece by Leonard Bernstein). Controversial aspects of Gershwin's career, such as the genesis of "I've Got Rhythm," the orchestration of concert works after Rhapsody in Blue, and Gershwin's place in American music, are well documented. Including a chronology and a selected bibliography, this excellent compendium is recommended for all libraries.-Bruce R. Schueneman, Texas A&M Univ. Lib., Kingsville Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

"A fascinating collection of articles, biographical reminiscences, reviews, musical analyses, and letters relating to the life and music of George Gershwin." —Library Journal

"How refreshing and exciting to see once again these surprises—and more—from the Gershwin scrapbooks, archives, private collections (some lost), in one cornucopia; the sweeping life of a wonderful great American master." —Edward Jablonski, historian, co-author of The Gershwin Years—George and Ira

"From early in Gershwin's career his music challenged Americans to rethink their assumptions about composition and performance, nationalism, cultural hierarchy, and the racial divide. Documenting that rethinking process, Wyatt and Johnson's reader also illuminates the life and legacy of one of American music's most charismatic figures." —Richard Crawford, University of Michigan

"A superb source book about a cornerstone figure in American Music...an indelible contribution to the very idea of American culture and how it got that way. Letters and pieces by Gershwin himself are prominent, but the book will go anywhere and everywhere to catch a glimpse of his raffish genius in the sunlight.... You get, then, Gershwin from many, if not all sides and seen through a huge variety of lenses."—Buffalo News

From the Publisher