Composed by George Gershwin

Rhapsody in Blue

Muddy Waters

R.L. Burnside

Everybody Loves the Blues - Blast

● “Blue” or “The Blues”○ a sad jazz song, often about being

heartbroken.○ This was more of a “pop” or “street” style of

music back in the 1920s and was never heard in fancy concert halls

○ “Jazz” is a kind of music that is a mixture of sounds from all over the world. This includes rhythms of West Africa, European harmonies, and American “Gospel” singing.

Vocabulary

Michael Buble - Cry Me a River

Peggy Lee - He's a Tramp

George Gershwin● George Gershwin

(September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist.

● Gershwin began his career in Tin Pan Alley and then as a song plugger, but soon started composing Broadway theatre works with his brother Ira Gershwin.

● A song plugger or song demonstrator was a vocalist or piano player employed by department and music stores and song publishers in the early 20th century to promote and help sell new sheet music, which is how hits were advertised before quality recordings were widely available.

Vocabulary

George Gershwin● His first published song was

published in 1916 when Gershwin was only 17 years old and earned him $0.50.

● Gershwin moved to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, where he began to compose An American in Paris. After returning to New York City, he wrote Porgy and Bess.

● Band leader Paul Whiteman asked Gershwin to contribute a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert he would give in Aeolian Hall in February 1924.

● Gershwin declined on the grounds that, as there would certainly be need for revisions to the score, he would not have enough time to compose the new piece.

Rhapsody in Blue● Gershwin eventually agreed to write

the piece, but forgot that he had.● It wasn’t until just a few weeks before

the concert that Gershwin remembered he had agreed to write a piece for the concert, and only because he read in the newspaper that Paul Whiteman’s band concert was going to “feature a jazz concerto by George Gershwin”.

● Gershwin found his inspiration for the piece while riding a train from New York to Boston.

Rhapsody in Blue● “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so

often so stimulating to a composer – I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise.... And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper – the complete construction of the Rhapsody, from beginning to end. No new themes came to me, but I worked on the thematic material already in my mind and tried to conceive the composition as a whole. 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. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.”

Rhapsody in Blue● It took Gershwin only three

weeks to write the entire Rhapsody in Blue.

● Gershwin passed the score to Whiteman's arranger Ferde Grofé, who orchestrated the piece, finishing it on February 4, only eight days before the premiere

Rhapsody in Blue● The Rhapsody was performed by Whiteman's band, with an

added section of string players, and George Gershwin on piano.

● Gershwin decided to keep his options open as to when Whiteman would bring in the orchestra and he did not write down one of the pages for solo piano, with only the words "Wait for nod" scrawled by Grofé on the band score.

● Gershwin improvised some of what he was playing, and he did not write out the piano part until after the performance, so it is unknown exactly how the original Rhapsody sounded.

Rhapsody in Blue● The opening clarinet glissando came

into being during rehearsal when; "... as a joke on Gershwin, [Ross] Gorman (Whiteman's virtuoso clarinettist) played the opening measure with a noticeable glissando, adding what he considered a humorous touch to the passage. Reacting favourably to Gorman's whimsy, Gershwin asked him to perform the opening measure that way at the concert and to add as much of a 'wail' as possible."

● “Rhapsody”○ in ancient Greece, this meant the recitation of

parts of an epic poem, often from mythology. ○ In music, the term means

■ a composition in one continuous “movement” instead of smaller movements played one after the other.

■ A Rhapsody is often based on popular, national, or folk melodies.

Vocabulary

● “Blue” or “The Blues”○ a sad jazz song, often about being

heartbroken.○ This was more of a “pop” or “street” style of

music back in the 1920s and was never heard in fancy concert halls

○ “Jazz” is a kind of music that is a mixture of sounds from all over the world. This includes rhythms of West Africa, European harmonies, and American “Gospel” singing.

Vocabulary

● Rhapsody in Blue○ The FORM of this piece is a

■ Concerto: a composition for orchestra and soloist.

○ This is the first composition or “piece” that ever combined “jazz” with “classical” music.

○ It is also one of the first pieces for orchestra to include the Saxophone.

Vocabulary

The Saxophone● The Saxophone (also referred to as

the sax) is a family of woodwind instruments. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet.

● The saxophone family was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1840.

● Adolphe Sax wanted to create a group or series of instruments that ○ had the technical speed of the

woodwind family○ had the volume capabilities of

the brass family○ (It could play loud AND fast)

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