George gershwin biography david

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His score for Porgy and Bess (1935, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and Dubose Heyward) straddles the world of opera and Broadway and includes such classic songs as "Summertime", "Bess You Is My Woman Now", "It Ain’t Necessarily So", and "I Got Plenty O’ Nuthin'." It was not originally a success, but with the passage of years many have come to consider it the greatest American opera written to date.

Gershwin was an intensely social person, and his crowd included such personalities as Moss Hart, Lillian Hellman, Edward G.

Robinson, film director Rouben Mamoulian, pianist and celebrity Oscar Levant, Harold Arlen, Vincente Minnelli, Irving Berlin, Dorothy Fields and Ginger Rodgers. The Gershwin Rhapsody can be considered the most frequently performed work by an American composer worldwide.

Following the success of the "Rhapsody in Blue," Gershwin composed the Piano Concerto in F major (1925), which, though less perfect in form and perhaps less original in material, captivated audiences with its emotional intensity.

Although he did not finish school in his youth, he was captivated by the American popular music industry known as Tin Pan Alley, where he started as a music demonstrator and later became a songwriter.

Gershwin achieved success with his musical comedy "La, La, Lucille" in 1919. However, it was his next composition in this mixed style, the "Rhapsody in Blue" for piano and orchestra (1924), that truly revolutionized the American music scene.

His Broadway musicals to follow, majority written with brother Ira, included Lady, Be Good! (1924, including "Fascinating Rhythm"), Tip Toes (1925, including "Sweet and Low Down"), Oh Kay! (1926, including "Clap Yo' Hands", "Do-Do-Do", "Maybe", and "Someone To Watch Over Me"), Funny Face (1927, including “’S Wonderful”), Rosalie (1928, including "How Long Has This Been Going On"), Show Girl (1929, including "Liza"), Strike Up the Band (1930, including "I've Got A Crush On You" and "Soon"), Girl Crazy (1930, including "But Not For Me", "Embraceable You", "Bidin’ My Time", and "I Got Rhythm"; the pit band for this show included an assortment of such future famous names as Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, and Benny Goodman), Delicious (1931, including " Blah Blah Blah"), Qf Thee I Sing (1931, the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize and which included "Of Thee I Sing", "Love Is Sweeping The Country", and "Who Cares"), Pardon My English (1933 including "Isn't It A Pity" and "Lorelei"), and Let 'Em Eat Cake (1933, including "Blue Blue Blue" and "Mine").

Among the movies for which he and his brother wrote scores was Shall We Dance (1937), which included such classic songs as "They All Laughed", "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off", and "They Can't Take That Away From Me." For A Damsel In Distress (1937) they wrote "Things Are I -'ooking Up", "A Foggy Day", "Nice Work If You Can Get It", and "I Can't Be Bothered Now."

At the time of his death, he was working on The Goldwyn Follies (1938) for which he and Ira wrote "Love Walked In" and "Love Is Here to Stay." Other notable songs include "Somebody Loves Me" (lyric by Buddy DeSylva and Ballard MacDonald, from George White’s Scandals of 1924) and "The Man I Love" (lyric by Ira Gershwin, dropped from Lady Be Good! in 1924).

George Gershwin had serious ambitions in the realm of classical music, studying with such classical composers as Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger.

This composition, despite its loose form and occasional repetition, gained wide international recognition thanks to its exceptional originality, liveliness of melody, rhythm, and, most importantly, its distinctly national character. At the age of 16 he worked as a song plugger for a Tin Pan Alley publisher and soon after he was hired as the rehearsal pianist for a new musical Miss 1917 by Jerome Kern and Victor Herbert.

Despite his premature death at 38 his output is outstanding. By 1913 he was working as a pianist and became a staff composer for a publishing firm in 1917. His first public step in this direction came when Paul Whiteman commissioned a piece from him for a special concert at New York's Aeolian Hall and the result was "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924).

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And from there on, he moved from success to success, producing a catalog of over a thousand songs, most of which have achieved status as standards in American Popular song.

In the early years of his career, Gershwin's songs had been inserted into other people's shows, but in 1919 he wrote his first complete Broadway score, La, La Lucille, with lyrics by Buddy De Sylva.

This triumphant score was followed by "Piano Concerto in F" (1925) and "An American in Paris" (1928). Al Jolson sang it in a show called Sinbad and the song took off, selling more than a million copies of sheet music and more than two million phonograph recordings.

There were many “firsts” for Gershwin: the first to combine serious and popular music in his jazz concerto, “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924); the first to score a Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, Of Thee I Sing (1931), which was one of the Gershwin brothers’ “serious” musicals employing social satire; and the first to write an American opera, Porgy and Bess (1935), further distinguished by its all-black cast, its roots in African culture, and hits such as “Summertime.” In 1926 his “Clap Yo’ Hands” encouraged other composers to create feel-good religious songs in their musicals, and “American in Paris” (1928) stands alone as an orchestral work.

Gershwin wrote for several of George White’s Scandals, an annual variety show which introduced songs such as “I’ll Build a Stairway to Paradise” and “Somebody Loves Me.”

George and his lyricist brother Ira produced many hit musicals: Lady Be Good (1924), starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the song “Fascinatin’ Rhythm”; Oh, Kay! (1926) in which Gertrude Lawrence introduced “Someone to Watch Over Me”; Funny Face (1927) with its hit “S’Wonderful”; Strike Up the Band (1930) with “I’ve Got a Crush on You”; and Girl Crazy (1930), which introduced “But Not for Me,” “Embraceable You,” and “I Got Rhythm.”

The Gershwins moved to Hollywood where they wrote for several films, foremost among them the Astaire/Rogers classic, Shall We Dance? (1937).

Gershwin's first attempt to incorporate jazz elements into traditional composition came with his one-act opera "135th Street," written for the 1923 musical "Scandals" by George White.

Shortly after, he soared to fame with the song "Swanee," performed by Al Jolson from 1919 to 1920. Gershwin was pictured on a commemorative postage stamp in 1973.

- Sandra Burlingame