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Review: Gramophone magazine
Technical Notes It was with some surprise that I came across a copy of this rare recording in near-mint condition lurking in the depths of the Pristine Audio collection a couple of weeks ago. Recorded shortly after the concert première, and featuring the soloists for which it had been orchestrated, the record was soon dropped from the catalogue as the advent of microphone-based "electrical" recordings rendered the older acoustic technique obsolete. What is rather amazing in this recording, however, is just how much has been captured. It has a frequency range far beyond that associated with most acoustic recordings, extending both above and below accepted norms by some considerable way, and thus particularly lending itself to the XR process and its ability to dig out particularly faint sounds and bring them back to a more natural level. The main problem we do hear on the discs is a tendency to blasting - overload distortion during loud peaks. This I've tamed as much as possible, but it remains evident in places, though it should not detract from your enjoyment of perhaps the most genuinely authentic recording of this piece ever made - despite the cuts necessary to squeeze it onto two twelve-inch 78rpm sides. We can honestly say that this is exactly how its composer intended it to be played!
George Gerswhin
Many of his compositions have been used on television and in numerous films, and many became jazz standards. The jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald recorded many of the Gershwins' songs on her 1959 Gershwin Songbook (arranged by Nelson Riddle). Countless singers and musicians have recorded Gershwin songs, including Louis Armstrong, Al Jolson, Art Tatum, Bing Crosby, John Coltrane, Frank Sinatra, Billie Holiday, Sam Cooke, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Judy Garland, Julie Andrews, Barbra Streisand, Marni Nixon, Natalie Cole, Nina Simone, Maureen McGovern, John Fahey, and Sting. Early Life Gershwin was born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New York to Russian Jewish immigrant parents. His father, Morris (Moishe) Gershowitz, changed the family name to Gershwin sometime after immigrating from St. Petersburg, Russia. Gershwin's mother, Rosa Bruskin, also immigrated from Russia; she married Gershowitz four years later. George Gershwin was the second of four children. He first displayed interest in music at the age of ten, when he was intrigued by what he heard at a friend, Max Rosen's, violin recital. The sound and the way his friend played captured him. His parents had bought a piano for his older brother Ira Gershwin, but to his parents' surprise and Ira's relief, it was George who played it. Although his younger sister Frances Gershwin was the first in the family to make money from her musical talents, she married young and became a housewife and mother, giving up her own singing and dance career—settling into painting, a hobby of George Gershwin's. Gershwin tried various piano teachers for two years, and then was introduced to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller, the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Hambitzer acted as George's mentor until his death, in 1918. Hambitzer taught George conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, and encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts. (At home following such concerts, young George would attempt to reproduce at the piano the music he had heard.) He later studied with classical composer Rubin Goldmark and avant-garde composer-theorist Henry Cowell.
Tin Pan Alley His first job as a performer was as a "song plugger" for Remick's, a publishing company on New York City's Tin Pan Alley. His 1917 novelty rag "Rialto Ripples" was a commercial success, and in 1919 he scored his first big national hit with his song "Swanee." In 1916, he started working for Aeolian Company and Standard Music Rolls in New York, recording and arranging piano rolls. He produced dozens, if not hundreds, of rolls under his own and assumed names. (Pseudonyms attributed to Gershwin include Fred Murtha and Bert Wynn.) He also recorded rolls of his own compositions for the Duo-Art and Welte-Mignon reproducing pianos. As well as recording piano rolls, Gershwin made a brief foray into vaudeville, accompanying both Nora Bayes and Louise Dresser on the piano. In 1924, George and Ira collaborated on a musical comedy, Lady Be Good which included such future standards as "Fascinating Rhythm" and "Lady Be Good.". This was followed by Oh, Kay! (1926),. Funny Face in (1927),. Strike Up the Band (1927 and 1930), Show Girl (1929), Girl Crazy (1930), which introduced the standard "I Got Rhythm," and Of Thee I Sing (1931), the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer Prize.
Classical Music, Opera, and European Influences In 1924, Gershwin composed his first major classical work, Rhapsody in Blue for orchestra and piano, which was orchestrated by Ferde Grofé and premièred with Paul Whiteman's concert band in New York. It proved to be his most popular work. Gershwin stayed in Paris for a short period, where he applied to study composition with Nadia Boulanger. While there, he wrote An American in Paris. This work received mixed reviews. There are orchestral nods towards Ravel's piano concerto of the same period. Eventually he found the music scene in Paris supercilious, and returned to America. His most ambitious composition was Porgy and Bess (1935). Called by Gershwin himself a "folk opera," the piece premièred in a Broadway theater and is now widely regarded as the most important American opera of the twentieth century. Based on the novel Porgy by DuBose Heyward, the action takes place in a black neighborhood in Charleston, South Carolina, and with the exception of several minor speaking roles, all of the characters are black. The music combines elements of popular music of the day, which was strongly influenced by black music, with techniques found in opera, such as recitative and leitmotifs. RecordingsEarly in his career Gershwin made dozens of player piano piano roll recordings and these were a main source of income for him. Many of these are of popular music of the period and many other are of his own works. Once his theatre-writing career took precedence his regular roll recording sessions dwindled as he was otherwise occupied. He did however record further rolls throughout the 1920s including a complete version of his Rhapsody in Blue. In comparison to the piano rolls, there are few accessible audio recordings of his playing. His very first recording was his own Swanee with the Fred Van Eps Trio in 1919. The recorded balance highlights the banjo playing of Van Eps, and the piano is overshadowed. The recording took place before Swanee became famous as an Al Jolson specialty in early 1920. Gershwin did record an abridged version of Rhapsody in Blue with Paul Whiteman and his orchestra for the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1924, soon after the world premiere. Gershwin and the same orchestra made an electrical recording of the same abridged version for Victor in 1927. However, a dispute in the studio over interpretation angered Paul Whiteman and he left. The conductor's baton was taken over by Victor's staff conductor Nathaniel Shilkret. Gershwin made a number of solo piano recordings of tunes from his musicals, some including the vocals of Fred and Adele Astaire, as well as his Three Preludes for piano. In 1929, Gershwin "supervised" the world premiere recording of An American in Paris with Nathaniel Shilkret and the Victor Symphony Orchestra. Gershwin's role in the recording was rather limited, particularly because Shilkret was conducting and had his own ideas about the music. Then someone realized they had not hired anyone to play the brief celeste solo, so they asked Gershwin if he would or could play the instrument, and he agreed. Gershwin can be heard, rather briefly, on the recording during the slow section. He appeared on several radio programs, including Rudy Vallee's program, and played some of his compositions, including the third movement of the Concerto in F with Vallee conducting the studio orchestra. Some of these performances were preserved on transcription discs and have been released on LP and CD. In 1934, in an effort to earn money to finance his planned folk opera, he hosted his own radio program titled "Music by Gershwin" in which he presented his own work as well as the work of other composers. Recordings from this and other radio broadcasts include his Variations on I Got Rhythm, portions of the Concerto in F, and numerous songs from his musical comedies. He also recorded a run-through of his Second Rhapsody, conducting the orchestra and playing the piano solos. RCA Victor asked him to supervise recordings of highlights from Porgy and Bess in 1935, which were his last recordings. A 33-second film clip of Gershwin playing I've Got Rhythm has survived, possibly taken from an early 1930s newsreel. There are also silent home movies, some in Kodachrome, of Gershwin that have been featured in tributes to the composer. In 1975, Columbia Records released an album featuring Gershwin's piano rolls playing the Rhapsody In Blue, accompanied by the Columbia Jazz Band playing the original jazz-band accompaniment of conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas. The flip side of the Columbia Masterworks release features Tilson Thomas leading the New York Philharmonic in An American In Paris. In 1993, a selection of piano rolls originally produced by Gershwin for the Standard Music Roll Company were issued by Nonesuch Records through the efforts of Artis Woodhouse and is entitled Gershwin Plays Gershwin: The Piano Rolls. Hollywood and Early Death Early in 1937, Gershwin began to complain of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he was smelling burned rubber. He had developed a brain tumor. In June, he performed in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux. It was in Hollywood, while working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies, that he collapsed and, on July 11, 1937, died at the age of 38 at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital following surgery for the tumor. Coincidentally, just a few months later in 1937, Gershwin's idol Ravel also died following brain surgery.
This text is edited from the full entry at Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gershwin
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