Gershwin/Price Program Notes

American composer George Gershwin’s life is an archetypal American rags-to-riches story whose music dramatically changed the course of American music to follow. Born to Russian Jewish immigrants in Brooklyn, Gershwin grew up in a crowded, small home with three siblings and one piano, where money and opportunity were tight. Having quickly mastered the piano, young Gershwin dropped out of school at 15 to work in the music-churning neighborhood known as Tin Pan Alley, where he was one of dozens of pianists selling songs for music publishers. While “plugging” songs for performers at the Alley, he continued his musical studies and composing, dreaming of making it big. By his early 20’s he had found some success with his own works on Broadway, and then, at the age of 26, Gershwin “arrived” with his 1924 Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra.

With Rhapsody in Blue (1924), Gershwin not only “brought jazz into the concert hall,” but fundamentally opened up a brand-new way of composing for American classical composers. Rhapsody made Gershwin world famous, and to this day it remains the iconic American piece that fused classical and jazz elements together successfully for the first time. The great conductor Walter Damrosch of the New York Symphony Orchestra was present at Gershwin’s premiere of his Rhapsody in Blue and immediately commissioned him for another piano concerto with his orchestra. With already three commitments for Broadway shows lined up, Gershwin got to the commission as soon as he could. And it was the beginning of an extremely exciting time for Gershwin, as his talents and the world seemed filled with endless possibilities, both on Broadway and on classical music stages. The work, his Concerto in F, was completed and premiered in 1925 at Carnegie Hall, conducted by Damrosch and the solo part performed by Gershwin. The work was an enormous success and has remained consistently popular in concert halls around the world. But it was an important work as well, not only for Gershwin’s blooming career, but for jazz. As Damrosch colorfully said:

“Various composers have been walking around jazz like a cat around a plate of soup, waiting for it to cool off so that they could enjoy it without burning their tongues… Lady Jazz …has danced her way around the world … but for all her travels and sweeping popularity, she has encountered no knight who could lift her to a level that would enable her to be received as a respectable member of musical circles. George Gershwin seems to have accomplished this miracle … boldly by dressing his extremely independent and up-to-date young lady in the classic garb of a concerto. … He is the Prince who has taken Cinderella by the hand and openly proclaimed her a princess to the astonished world…”

The very first notes of the Concerto come, surprisingly, from the timpani and percussion, with some brief salvos in the upper winds, loudly playing a rhythmic motive that will infuse the rest of the work. That the Concerto opens with the timpani shows us Gershwin’s notion of the work as “representing the young enthusiastic spirit of American life” – bold and certain. The orchestra then begins playing an upbeat and toe-tapping Charleston dance. When the piano enters, though, everything suddenly becomes soft and bluesy – just solo piano in a quiet mood playing a theme made of sweet jazz riffs, like an easy little cadenza. The movement moves forward like this, dancing in and out of jazz-infused moments with big, sweeping romantic moments, never settling, just simply moving onward. And as the movement progresses, the piano solo becomes increasingly dazzling. The ending section is particularly exciting, as it races through all the motives and themes of this movement in quick succession, like images on a movie screen.

The second movement, Adagio – Andante con moto (slowly – then a little faster), was described by Gershwin: “The second movement has a poetic, nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues, but in a purer form than that in which they are usually treated.” Indeed, a lone trumpet sings a bittersweet bluesy serenade against a few strings and a few winds, conjuring a dimly lit juke house with cigarette smoke lingering in the air. When the piano finally joins the crowd, about three-and-a-half minutes later, the tempo picks up and the mood lightens, and the upper strings take to strumming their instruments like tiny guitars. Soon after, the piano drifts into a dreamy little cadenza – the beautiful thing about it is how Gershwin doesn’t give it measures of showiness, but rather, it’s as if Chopin were there in the jazz house singing to his piano – so classically minded in its jazzy riffs. Although this movement will subsequently give several nods to Broadway bravura, it ends with a sentimental whisper.

The final movement, Allegro agitato (fast and agitated), was explained by Gershwin as this: “The final movement reverts to the style of the first. It is an orgy of rhythms, starting violently and keeping to the same pace throughout.” But there is plenty of fun and lyricism in it as well. From the very beginning, a motive of a rapidly-repeated note ending in a syncopated little flourish – sounding particularly exciting on the piano keys – recurs frequently throughout. Listen at about four minutes into the movement when the xylophone plays this motive in a delightful duet with the piano. The soloist must now be immensely fleet of fingers in this finale, and as Gershwin said, the energy and drive is almost unabating. When the solo tam-tam (large gong) smashes, the Concerto moves into its closing section by recalling the rhythmic timpani motive that began the first movement, and this brilliant Concerto comes to its rousing final bars.