Leonard Bernstein & The New York Philharmonic / Rhapsody in Blue / 1976
Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman and written by George Gershwin, the work premiered in a concert titled “An Experiment in Modern Music” on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman’s band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano.
The rhapsody is one of Gershwin’s most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin’s piece inaugurated a new era in America’s musical history, established his reputation as an eminent composer and became one of the most popular of all concert works.
Paul Whiteman
Following the success of an experimental classical-jazz concert held with Canadian singer Eva Gauthier in New York City on November 1, 1923, bandleader Paul Whiteman decided to attempt a more ambitious feat. He asked composer George Gershwin to write a concerto-like piece for an all-jazz concert in honor of Lincoln’s Birthday to be given at Aeolian Hall. Whiteman became fixated upon performing such an extended composition by Gershwin after he collaborated with him in The Scandals of 1922. He had been especially impressed by Gershwin’s one-act “jazz opera” Blue Monday. Gershwin initially declined Whiteman’s request on the grounds that he would have insufficient time to compose the work and there would likely be a need to revise the score.
Soon after, on the evening of January 3, George Gershwin and lyricist Buddy DeSilva were playing a game of billiards at the Ambassador Billiard Parlor at Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan. George’s brother, Ira Gershwin, interrupted their billiard game to read aloud an article from the January 4 edition of the New York Tribune titled “What is American Music?” about an upcoming Whiteman concert. The article falsely declared that George Gershwin had begun “work on a jazz concerto” for Whiteman’s concert.
George Gershwin
The news announcement puzzled Gershwin as he had politely declined to compose any such work for Whiteman. In a telephone conversation with Whiteman the next morning, Whiteman informed Gershwin that Whiteman’s archrival Vincent Lopez planned to steal the idea of his experimental concert and there was no time to lose. Whiteman thus finally persuaded Gershwin to compose the piece.
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With only five weeks remaining until the premiere, Gershwin hurriedly set about composing the work. He later claimed that, while on a train journey to Boston, the thematic seeds for Rhapsody in Blue began to germinate in his mind. He told biographer Isaac Goldberg in 1931:
“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.”
Gershwin began composing on January 7 as dated on the original manuscript for two pianos. He tentatively entitled the piece as American Rhapsody during its composition. Ira Gershwin suggested the revised title of Rhapsody in Blue after his visit to a gallery exhibition of James Whistler paintings with titles like Nocturne in Black and Gold and Arrangement in Grey and Black.
After a few weeks, Gershwin finished his composition and gave the score to Whiteman’s arranger Ferde Grofe. The arranger finished orchestrating the piece on February 4, just eight days before the premiere.
Where Bernstein Performed his 1976 Concert
In an article in The Atlantic Monthly (1955), Leonard Bernstein stated:
“Rhapsody in Blue is not a real composition in the sense that whatever happens in it must seem inevitable, or even pretty inevitable. You can cut out parts of it without affecting the whole in any way except to make it shorter. You can remove any of these stuck-together sections and the piece still goes on as bravely as before. You can even interchange these sections with one another and no harm done. You can make cuts within a section, or add new cadenzas, or play it with any combination of instruments or on the piano alone; it can be a five-minute piece or a six-minute piece or a twelve-minute piece. And in fact all these things are being done to it every day. It’s still the Rhapsody in Blue.”
Rhapsody in Blue has been interpreted as a musical portrait of Jazz Age New York City
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NOTES
Rhapsody in Blue on Classics Explained Animated Video
Background on the composition from Jazz: America’s Gift