# Gershwin's Piano Concerto



## spike (Jan 9, 2015)

Would you say that Gershwin’s piano concerto is classed as classical music or jazz, or a mixture of the two? I find it difficult to make the distinction but would like to be able to do so.


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## PeteW (Dec 20, 2014)

spike said:


> Would you say that Gershwin's piano concerto is classed as classical music or jazz, or a mixture of the two? I find it difficult to make the distinction.


I've always thought both. What a superb piece of music though. Fell in love with it many years ago.


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## spike (Jan 9, 2015)

Yes, I love it too.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Just heard it on the radio today. It is certainly classical music - completely written out, using established classical forms and techniques - but much influenced by jazz, like all of Gershwin's larger works.

Anyone else notice the resemblance of that first-movement theme that recurs in the finale to the old Perry Mason TV theme?


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## michaels (Oct 3, 2014)

I too struggle with this, but classify it as Classical because, for me, I classify the "Jazz" genre to be a specific set of different sub-types of jazz (e.g. I include Miles Davis with Diane Krall and Dizzy, but not with male vocal "jazz" or fusion).


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)

I consider George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Concerto in F (1925) to be piano concerti, and Maurice Ravel did, too. The first being "jazzy", and the second with more classical structure.

Odd coincidence, that Ravel and Gershwin would both die in 1937, following, "similar unsuccessful brain operations."

Related:

http://www.carnegiehall.org/BlogPost.aspx?id=4294985697


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Didn't Ferdie Groffe orchestrate all of Gershwin's stuff? Or was it only the_ Rhapsody in Blue_?


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

The piano concerto in F, I listened to today, by coincidence. I think it's classical, though heavily influenced by jazz. I've heard that Ferde Grofe orchestrated much of Gerswhin's orchestral music.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

senza sordino said:


> The piano concerto in F, I listened to today, by coincidence. I think it's classical, though heavily influenced by jazz. I've heard that Ferde Grofe orchestrated much of Gerswhin's orchestral music.


Thanks, senza. I just floated the question out there to see what people would have to say about Gershwin's and Groffe's professional relationship, not knowing anything about it, myself.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Thanks, senza. I just floated the question out there to see what people would have to say about Gershwin's and Grofé's professional relationship, not knowing anything about it, myself.


I know for certain that Gershwin, knowing that "classical" stigma about not orchestrating your own work, worked hard to learn to do his own, and _Concerto in F_ is "all his." Since he was almost entirely autodidact, I would think he wanted to learn it too, to more shape his own sound. (I do not know at all about the orchestration of Porgy and Bess, which Grofé _may have_ also orchestrated, but this question now has me curious

The _Rhapsody in Blue_ was commissioned in 1924 by Paul Whitman and his Jazz Band, who had planned a concert the program of which had been raised in some new article, "What is American Music?" Gershwin first hesitant and in doubt if he could deliver such a piece. His brother Ira pointed out a press piece which announced a similar intent by another musician, I think scheduled to 'beat out' and steal the press from the Whitman concert, and he then quickly got to work.

The whole thing was a remarkably pall-mall affair:
Gershwin started on 7 January, a dated manuscript in two piano format confirms that. That draft (piano solo and the other a piano reduction of the band material) was finished within "a few weeks." The score was then passed along to Ferde Grofé, who at the time was Whitman's arranger, who orchestrated the piece. The orchestration was finished 4 February, eight days before the work's premiere.

I imagine later fuller orchestrations of the piece for larger ensembles were also done by Grofé.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I think Porgy and Bess is also all Gershwin. I don't think he would have liked the overblown full orchestral version of Rhapsody in Blue.

Incidentally, Ira Gershwin also came up with the title for Rhapsody in Blue, inspired by the art world.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

I think that it's a wonderful admixture of jazz and classical with it leaning more towards the classical part. Grimaud does a wonderful performance of it in fact.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Mahlerian said:


> I think Porgy and Bess is also all Gershwin. I don't think he would have liked the overblown full orchestral version of Rhapsody in Blue.


Neither of us are George, but I could not more agree with that. Having heard several older recordings with the original number of players for which the work was commissioned, conceived, and written, and those recordings with jazz musicians, not classical performers so deeply inured in their playing habit that the attempt to play 'like jazz' is nowhere near like.

The original forces, with real jazz players, _is the real deal._ Anything else is a tamed rowdy dressed up slick to take downtown, and who looks insufferably restrained and acts uncomfortably out of place the whole while. The piece is _for solo piano and jazz band__._ Not too many have ever heard it that way!



Mahlerian said:


> Incidentally, Ira Gershwin also came up with the title for Rhapsody in Blue, inspired by the art world.


 Ira was the writer  George had thought to call it something pretty banal with no zing to it like _"An American Rhapsody."_ It was Ira who thought of the title, suggesting _Rhapsody in Blue_ "after his visit to a gallery exhibition of James McNeill Whistler paintings, which bear titles such as _Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket_, and _Arrangement in Grey and Black_ (better known as Whistler's Mother)"*

*Wikipedia


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## spradlig (Jul 25, 2012)

I'm pretty sure Gershwin orchestrated _An American in Paris_ himself. I did some little Googling to confirm, and one source confirmed it, none claimed otherwise. I think he did a great job.

I've always preferred the familiar Grofe orchestration of _Rhapsody in Blue_ to any more authentic versions I've heard for smaller ensembles. What can I say, it just sounds better to me. Maybe because that's the version I heard first. 



Marschallin Blair said:


> Didn't Ferdie Groffe orchestrate all of Gershwin's stuff? Or was it only the_ Rhapsody in Blue_?


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Vaneyes said:


> I consider George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and Concerto in F (1925) to be piano concerti, and Maurice Ravel did, too. The first being "jazzy", and the second with more classical structure.
> 
> Odd coincidence, that Ravel and Gershwin would both die in 1937, following, "similar unsuccessful brain operations."
> 
> ...


The first movement of the Ravel concerto sounds very Gershwin-ish.


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