100 Years of "Rhapsody in Blue"

January 8, 2024 5:13 AM

Gershwin had forgotten he was supposed to write a concerto until just two weeks before, when he saw the concert’s ad in The New York Tribune.
posted by cupcakeninja (34 comments total)

Here's Sara Davis Buechner playing Gerschwin's piano solo arrangement.
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice at 6:07 AM on January 8

I just sent this to a friend who's got an exhibition to prepare for and a ton of marking for her students, partially to make her feel momentarily better before blocking me for being a total bastard. And then no doubt then going off to listen to Gershwin instead of doing her marking.
posted by bookbook at 6:12 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Rhapsody In Blue, the concerto version, was my big Senior Piano Recital piece. It's one hell of a piece of music and is great fun to play even if a bit insane at time.
posted by hippybear at 6:18 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]

damn I wish I had a concerto to write, that I could forget about until 2 weeks before deadline and it turns out a huge hit anyway.
posted by daisystomper at 6:42 AM on January 8 [6 favorites]

Funny to hear that Bernstein panned it, given that the recording I grew up on was Bernstein conducting and playing the piano part himself.

Not that he's wrong. The piece doesn't really have any structure - it's like 4 or 5 themes interspersed almost randomly. I was familiar with (and love) the story of him writing it in a panic after seeing the ad in the paper, but I didn't know that he improvised the piano part live. Wow.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:23 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]

The same Tribune that had announced the concert called it “trite, feeble, and conventional.”

Conventional?
posted by trig at 7:35 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

In a recent interview with Rick Beato, Bela Fleck talks about arranging Rhapsody in Blue for banjo. The interview is up on YT, as well as several of his performances of the piece, whether solo or with the Nashville Symphony. [sorry, at work, can't poke around for links]
posted by indexy at 7:57 AM on January 8

This piece, one of the great concertos of any kind ever. The linked article leaves out great details from this story, like Gershwin sitting in the hall during rehearsals, frantically writing to stay ahead of the ensemble's rehearsal pace and handing single pages to Ferde Grofé to orchestrate, literally as he finished each one; and Grofé orchestrating directly to parts a lot of the time, just to get the next page to players as quickly as possible. And then Gershwin winging the whole damn solo part because he didn't have time to write his part down (and reports are that there was an additional ~7 minutes of solo playing at the premiere, that didn't make it into the notated version). It's one of my favorite stories in all of music history, especially because the piece has become so seminal.

(And effortlessly, amazingly Modernist, a beautiful, organic fusion of Viennese developmental, symphonic writing and American popular song/early jazz form & style, an absolutely brilliant piece by any metric or framing. IMHO. And as Bernstein came to agree.)

Be sure to listen to the original version, scored for Whiteman's jazz orchestra. It is the best version.

Also, that whole 1924 program at Aeolian Hall ('An Experiment in Modern Music') is completely amazing, Rhapsody was the closing number of a remarkable event. Good article about the impact of that concert, The Concert 'That Saved Jazz'.
posted by LooseFilter at 8:22 AM on January 8 [19 favorites]

I love Rhapsody in Blue and have fond memories of laying on the carpet in the living room as a kid, listening to my sister's tape of it.

What blew my mind was learning that he wrote it on a train and was inspired by the sounds of it. Now I can't help but hear the train when I listen to it, which just makes it better in my mind since I also love trains.
posted by carrioncomfort at 8:24 AM on January 8 [4 favorites]

One of my favorite recordings, Gershwin himself playing Rhapsody, captured on a piano roll and re-recorded on a modern concert stage. Apparently for some of the denser bits, even Gershwin had to turn the piano roll back and record a duet with himself.
posted by Inkslinger at 8:36 AM on January 8 [3 favorites]

I first heard when a grasshopper. My father used to play it on his Heath Kit system and speakers that he built himself. I think it was the Bernstein version. It (not Bernstein) came on the other day in the car and brought back some good memories.
posted by DJZouke at 8:38 AM on January 8

1923 was peak Model T production (2M/yr), there were 2 million radio sets in homes, home electrification, telephones, ice boxes . . . the 1920s were when the 20th century really got rolling.

Joining late, the USA got through WW I relatively light, but still paid a butcher's bill 2X that of our later Vietnam involvement, and all in 1918 basically.

And then their global pandemic came & went, and we've had first-hand experience of something similar to that now.

The 20s were a helluva decade – and this composition reflects its new energy.

( This decade ain't so hot tho, alas.)
posted by torokunai at 8:58 AM on January 8

Mrs. W and I saw a fantastic performance of this Saturday night with this soloist. He was amazing.
posted by wittgenstein at 9:08 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

Sun Ra's version
posted by schyler523 at 9:18 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]

Thanks, Loosefilter for the link to the contents of the program of the 1924 concert. Looks like someone has made a setlist.fm which makes it possible to listen to YouTube links for the pieces in the concert.

It looks like they have based their playlist on the record reconstruction that used period recordings.

Here is a 1987 NY Times review comparing a recording of the Maurice Peress concert reconstruction that you linked to a program of with the Smithsonian reconstruction using historical recordings.

I’m having a listen to Gershwin playing with Paul Whiteman’s orchestra in what is billed as the first recording of Rhapsody in Blue.
posted by larrybob at 10:55 AM on January 8 [2 favorites]

I always disliked Rhapsody in Blue because I thought it was way too broad, sappy and oversweetened.

But then decades after that opinion had formed and hardened, I heard Gershwin's Concerto in F and thought it was transcendent — everything people claimed for Rhapsody in Blue and much more.

Now I can tolerate Rhapsody as a kind of botched but necessary precursor that led to something truly great.
posted by jamjam at 11:22 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

From the article:

Leonard Bernstein described it as “not a real composition"...

And about 50 years later, here is Leonard Bernstein performing it with the New York Philharmonic in 1976.
posted by SegFaultCoreDump at 11:34 AM on January 8 [1 favorite]

LarryBob, thanks for posting! that version is so.... jazzy! It's not overly burleseque-lowbrow, but it's also not "classical orchestra" highbrow. It's just... adventurous, playful, in-your-face, unapologetic. I love it.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 12:06 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

What blew my mind was learning that he wrote it on a train and was inspired by the sounds of it. Now I can't help but hear the train when I listen to it, which just makes it better in my mind since I also love trains.

"Rhapsody in Blue" has also been the theme song for United Airlines since the 80s. My parents and I moved to the US in 84, and we quickly became a United loyalist family, so "Rhapsody In Blue" has been the constant soundtrack with dreaming of adventures, flying over an ocean, waking up in a new country, and waiting on hold.

I was recently plotting out a vacation in Europe for later this summer and eventhough I wasn't flying United, I still felt the urge to cue up "Rhapsody in Blue" while comparing different flight itineraries.

I didn't know that it was written on a train, but I love knowing that now.
posted by bl1nk at 2:06 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]

Was going to say, now I have a sudden urge to buy a ticket on United. I'm a sucker the piece, too. I loved playing it in an orchestra.
posted by atomicstone at 2:29 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

The best recordings of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. I liked Jean-Yves Thibaudet's original jazz version and André Previn's version for orchestra.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:38 PM on January 8

What blew my mind was learning that he wrote it on a train and was inspired by the sounds of it.

That doesn't surprise me. It's always sounded like bustling '20s New York to me.
posted by kirkaracha at 2:39 PM on January 8 [2 favorites]

Kirkaracha, I am really liking the Marcus Roberts Version mentioned in the BBC article. It adds jazz idioms updated for the century since Gershwin.
posted by larrybob at 2:52 PM on January 8

And just so it doesn't sneak up on ya, Kind Of Blue is also slowly and stealthily advancing towards an equivalent and and surprising centenary.

Having taken the holidays as an excuse to finally upgrade our audio system, I've been leaning hard into our jazz collection and in the course being constantly reminded - as though I didn't already know - how utterly masterful, mind blowing and transcendent every facet of hat entire collaboration was for future followers.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 4:41 PM on January 8 [3 favorites]

Charles Cornell has a good video on the piece.
posted by kathrynm at 4:59 PM on January 8

a very physical, powerful, riveting and energetic performance by the singular Khatia Buniatishvilli
posted by jerome powell buys his sweatbands in bulk only at 5:57 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

And here's the version by Thomas Lauderdale and Satan's Pilgrims for your listening pleasure.
posted by gtrwolf at 7:07 PM on January 8 [1 favorite]

And just so it doesn't sneak up on ya, Kind Of Blue is also slowly and stealthily advancing towards an equivalent and and surprising centenary.

How so? Kind of Blue was released in 1959. So another 35 years to go. :)
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 9:01 AM on January 9

a very physical, powerful, riveting and energetic performance by the singular Khatia Buniatishvilli

That was great!

And here's the version by Thomas Lauderdale and Satan's Pilgrims for your listening pleasure.

I didn't know I needed an instrumental surf version until now.
posted by kirkaracha at 11:19 AM on January 9 [1 favorite]

It's also magnificent in the opening credits to Woody Allen's Manhattan. Don't @ me or whatever one says to that effect these days.
posted by less-of-course at 12:22 PM on January 9 [1 favorite]

And just so it doesn't sneak up on ya, Kind Of Blue is also slowly and stealthily advancing towards an equivalent and and surprising centenary.

How so? Kind of Blue was released in 1959. So another 35 years to go. :)

Well, TCK did say "slowly and stealthily advancing" :) Though you'd be surprised at how fast 35 years can go by....
posted by gtrwolf at 8:56 AM on January 14

My very favorite song. And you beat me to the punch on the post, cupcakeninja!
posted by grubi at 6:09 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]

It is one of NYC's anthems.
posted by DJZouke at 7:34 AM on January 16

“The Worst Masterpiece: ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ at 100,” [archive.is] Ethan Iverson, The New York Times, 26 January 2024

A jazz musician considers the legacy and unfulfilled promise of George Gershwin’s catchy — or you could say corny — repertory staple.

posted by ob1quixote at 8:39 AM on January 27