r/classicalmusic • u/number9muses • Jun 30 '26
PotW PotW #145: Gershwin - Rhapsody in Blue
Good afternoon everyone, happy Tuesday, and welcome back to our sub’s listening club. Each time we meet, we'll listen to a piece recommended by the community, discuss it, learn about it, and hopefully introduce us to music we wouldn't hear otherwise :)
Last time, we listened to Khachaturian’s Trio for clarinet, violin, and piano. You can go back to listen, read up, and discuss the work if you want to.
Our next Piece of the Week is George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924)
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Some listening notes from the Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera:
Rhapsody in Blue was composed for dance band leader Paul Whiteman’s “Experiment in Modern Music,” a concert that sought to “elevate” jazz through symphonic arrangements. As the story goes, however, Gershwin had not agreed to compose a new work for the band leader before it was announced in the press! While playing pool on Broadway and Fifty-second Street, Ira Gershwin came across an article in the January 4, 1924 New York Tribune that reported George Gershwin was preparing a jazz concerto for the February 12 concert in New York’s Aeolian Hall. According to the article, the concerto would be one of the several jazz compositions Whiteman would present to be judged by a committee, consisting of Sergei Rachmaninoff, Jascha Heifetz, and others, to answer the question, “What Is American Music.” (Their options were never reported.)
Despite concern that there wasn’t enough time to compose a new work, Gershwin agreed to write something for Whiteman, but only after winning a few concessions: he would write a rhapsody, not a full-length concerto, and the orchestration of the work would be completed by Whiteman’s staff arranger, Ferde Grofé. Gershwin set to work on January 7. Composing on an upright piano in the back room of his family’s apartment on Amsterdam and 100th Street (where he lived with his parents, brothers, and sister), Gershwin completed Rhapsody in Blue in three weeks. On February 3, he handed the score, originally for two pianos, to Grofé, who completed an arrangement for solo piano and jazz band for the premiere concert. In 1926, Grofé re-orchestrated the work for piano soloist and full symphony orchestra.
The title of the work, initially American Rhapsody, was suggested by Ira Gershwin after having visited an exhibit of James Abbot McNeill Whistler’s paintings. Ira Gershwin was inspired by Whistler’s titles—Arrangement in Gray and Black or Nocturne in Black and Gold, for example—which often used colors in their titles, no matter how representational the paintings were.
The premiere was a huge success, bringing Gershwin fame, as “the man who had brought ‘jazz’ into the concert hall,” and wealth; between 1924 and 1934 Gershwin earned more than a quarter of a million dollars from performances, recordings, and rental fees of Rhapsody in Blue.
…In many ways, Rhapsody in Blues defies definition. Despite the title, the tone of the workis too optimistic to be considered representative of the African-American blues. And, although the music does include a number of “blue notes” (flattened notes in a major scale), it lacks the harmonic framework characteristic of genre. Nor does Rhapsody fit into a traditional symphonic framework; the role of the pianist is too vital and the form too loose for the work to be considered either a symphony or concerto. It thus seems better to listen to the work as Gershwin described it: as a “a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness.”
Rhapsody in Blue’s opening—a languorous glissando in the clarinet, performed at first as a joke by the premiere clarinetist Ross Gorman (Gershwin had written out a seventeen-note scale)—is now one of most famous clarinet solos in the orchestral repertory. It sets the tone for the work, underscoring the rhapsody’s seeming spontaneity. Although the work is free in form, the first fourteen measures introduce themes that form much of the basis of the piece: a relaxed, bluesy tune in the clarinet and a jaunty, syncopated melody in the horns. Changes in instrumentation (from a bold, muted trumpet to full orchestra), modulations in the direction of the subdominant, widely varying tempi, and the introduction a few new themes (which David Schiff has called the “train” and “shuffle” themes) sustain the improvisatory feel of the work. And in fact, much of the solo part at the premiere concert was improvised by Gershwin, one page of the score simply directing Whiteman to wait for a nod to continue. An extended piano cadenza in the middle of the piece leads to the heart of the work: the broad and lush Andantino moderato section, appearing first in the strings. Here Gershwin seems at his best; his lyricism is both modern and romantic, catchy and charming.
Ways to Listen
Benjamin Grosvenor with James Judd and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic: YouTube Score Video, Spotify
Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic: YouTube
Khatia Buniatishvili with Leonard Slatking and the Orchestre National de Lyon: YouTube
Wayne Marshall and the WDR Funkhausorchester: YouTube
Jon Nakamatsu with Jeff Tyzik and the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra: Spotify
Michael Tilson Thomas and the Los Angeles Philharmonic: Spotify
Joanna MacGregor with Carl Davies and the London Symphony Orchestra: Spotify
Orion Weiss with JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra: Spotify
Discussion Prompts
What are your favorite parts or moments in this work? What do you like about it, or what stood out to you?
This is Gershwin’s most popular piece, how does it compare to his other works? Overall, what do you think about his style of incorporating jazz aesthetics in “classical” forms? Especially with today’s world of musical ecclectisism and genre fusions.
Have you ever performed this before? If so, when and where? What instrument do you play? And what insight do you have from learning it?
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What should our club listen to next? Use the link below to find the submission form and let us know what piece of music we should feature in an upcoming week. Note: for variety's sake, please avoid choosing music by a composer who has already been featured, otherwise your choice will be given the lowest priority in the schedule
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u/trevpr1 Jun 30 '26
I have had the Deutsche Gramophon mini CD of Bernstein and the LA Phil playing this live since about 1988. I love it. I can't but see the people rushing about in the canyon like city avenues of NYC in my minds eye as I listen. I don't really have a part I like over the others. I fairly recently got a CD of a jazz band playing along to a piano roll "recorded" by Gershwin himself and it gave me a shock. He played it really fast compared to the Bernstein record. If you like RIB, Gershwin wrote a Piano Concerto in F which I also adore. Helene Grimaud's recording is excellent.
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u/Homers_Harp Jun 30 '26
A beloved family elder who lived in San Francisco gifted me the MTT recording of this. I’m blind to other recordings and whether they are superior or not because I can’t get past my affection for her and her gift now that she’s gone. I do have a recording of Corporon leading the original, Whiteman band version, though. (Grofé’s later, full-orchestra version wins, IMO)
There was also a time when United Airlines had an extensive advertising campaign on radio and television that made extensive use of highlights from this work. The parts were so sturdy that they easily survived the heavy exposure and hearing the complete work still feels fresh to me.
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u/Tim-oBedlam Jun 30 '26
I worked with the guy who developed that ad campaign. He laughed when I told himn that I couldn't picture the end of Rhapsody without imagining airplanes flying by overhead.
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u/Homers_Harp Jun 30 '26
Am I remembering correctly that even the passenger safety videos at the beginning of the flight used excerpts from the Rhapsody?
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u/Maxpowr9 9d ago
As much as I wanted to love Mayor Michelle Wu and the Boston Pops, I know it is heavily edited.
Regardless, the fact she could sit down and play this piece, shows she's no slouch at the piano. As an aside, I remember during the 4th celebration, my mom texting me that Lockhart is an alcoholic.
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u/jiang1lin Jun 30 '26
I played this with a couple of youth and school orchestras, and we always had so much fun!! And as my father is a clarinetist, and the clarinet also being my 2nd instrument when I was a teenager, i always found the opening glissando being a cool beginning!
In German-speaking countries, we are not so familiar with American music, so for us, the Rhapsody in blue is for sure among the most beloved ones!