Rhapsody in Blue

Bandleader Paul Whiteman (left) and composer George Gershwin (right)

Following the success of an experimental classical-jazz concert held with Canadian singer Éva Gauthier in New York City on November 1, 1923, bandleader Paul Whiteman decided to attempt a more ambitious feat.[1] 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.[8] Whiteman became fixated upon performing such an extended composition by Gershwin after he collaborated with him in The Scandals of 1922.[9] He also had been especially impressed by Gershwin's one-act "jazz opera" Blue Monday.[10] However, Gershwin initially declined Whiteman's request on the grounds that—as there would likely be a need for revisions to the score—he would have insufficient time to compose the work.[11]

Soon after, on the evening of January 3, George Gershwin and lyricist Buddy De Sylva were playing billiards at the Ambassador Billiard Parlor at Broadway and 52nd Street in Manhattan.[12] Their game was interrupted by Ira Gershwin, George's brother, who had been reading the January 4 edition of the New-York Tribune.[11][13] An unsigned article entitled "What Is American Music?" about an upcoming Whiteman concert had caught Ira's attention.[12] The article falsely declared that George Gershwin was already "at work on a jazz concerto" for Whiteman's concert.[1][12]

Gershwin was puzzled by the news announcement as he had politely declined to compose any such work for Whiteman.[14] In a telephone conversation with Whiteman the next morning, Gershwin was informed that Whiteman's arch rival Vincent Lopez was planning to steal the idea of his experimental concert and there was no time to lose.[15] Gershwin was thus finally persuaded by Whiteman to compose the piece.[15]

With only five weeks remaining until the premiere, Gershwin hurriedly set about composing the work.[12] He later claimed that, while on a train journey to Boston, the thematic seeds for Rhapsody in Blue began to germinate in his mind.[16][15] He told biographer Isaac Goldberg in 1931:

It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty [sic] 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.[16]

Gershwin began composing on January 7 as dated on the original manuscript for two pianos.[1] He tentatively entitled the piece as American Rhapsody during its composition.[17] The revised title Rhapsody in Blue was suggested by Ira Gershwin after his visit to a gallery exhibition of James McNeill Whistler paintings, which had titles such as Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket and Arrangement in Grey and Black.[17][18] After a few weeks, Gershwin finished his composition and passed the score to Ferde Grofé, Whiteman's arranger.[19] Grofé finished orchestrating the piece on February 4—a mere eight days before the premiere.[19]

The Rhapsody premiered on a snowy afternoon at Aeolian Hall, Manhattan, pictured here in 1923.

Rhapsody in Blue premiered during a snowy[20] afternoon on Tuesday, February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall, Manhattan.[3] Entitled "An Experiment in Modern Music,"[2] the much-anticipated concert held by Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra drew a "packed audience."[3][21] The excited audience consisted of "Vaudevillians, concert managers come to have a look at the novelty, Tin Pan Alleyites, composers, symphony and opera stars, flappers, cake-eaters, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy."[20] Many influential figures of the era were present, including Carl Van Vechten,[5] Marguerite d'Alvarez,[5] Victor Herbert,[22] Walter Damrosch,[22] Igor Stravinsky,[23] Fritz Kreisler,[24] Leopold Stokowski,[25] John Philip Sousa,[26] and Willie "the Lion" Smith.[26]

In a pre-concert lecture, Whiteman's manager Hugh C. Ernst[27] proclaimed the purpose of the concert was "to be purely educational".[28][27] The selected music was intended to exemplify the "melodies, harmony and rhythms which agitate the throbbing emotional resources of this young restless age."[29] The concert's program was lengthy with 26 separate musical movements, divided into 2 parts and 11 sections, bearing titles such as "True Form Of Jazz" and "Contrast—Legitimate Scoring vs. Jazzing."[30] In the program's schedule, Gershwin's rhapsody was merely the penultimate piece and preceded Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1.[31]

Many of the early numbers in the program reportedly underwhelmed the audience, and the ventilation system in the concert hall malfunctioned.[32] Some audience members were departing for the exits by the time Gershwin made his inconspicuous entrance for the rhapsody.[32] The audience purportedly were irritable, impatient, and restless until the haunting clarinet glissando that opened Rhapsody in Blue was heard.[33][2] The distinctive glissando had been created quite by happenstance during rehearsals:

"As a joke on Gershwin.... [Ross] Gorman [Whiteman's virtuoso clarinettist] played the opening measure with a noticeable glissando, 'stretching' the notes out and adding what he considered a jazzy, humorous touch to the passage. Reacting favorably to Gorman's whimsy, Gershwin asked him to perform the opening measure that way.... and to add as much of a 'wail' as possible."[34]

The rhapsody was then performed by Whiteman's orchestra consisting of "twenty-three musicians in the ensemble" with George Gershwin on piano.[35][36] In characteristic style, Gershwin chose to partially improvise his piano solo.[36] Consequently, the orchestra anxiously waited for Gershwin's nod which signaled the end of his piano solo and the cue for the ensemble to resume playing.[36] As Gershwin improvised some of what he was playing, the solo piano section was not technically written until after the performance; hence, it is unknown exactly how the original rhapsody sounded at the premiere.[37]

Carl Van Vechten, Marguerite d'Alvarez, and Victor Herbert were among the many eminent persons in the audience.

Upon the conclusion of the rhapsody, there was "tumultuous applause for Gershwin's composition,"[3][38] and, quite unexpectedly, "the concert, in every respect but the financial,[lower-alpha 1] was a 'knockout'."[40] The concert itself would become historically significant due to the premiere of the rhapsody, and its program would "become not only a historic document, finding its way into foreign monographs on jazz, but a rarity as well."[20]

Following the success of rhapsody's premiere, future performances followed. The first British performance of Rhapsody in Blue took place at the Savoy Hotel in London on June 15, 1925.[41] It was broadcast in a live relay by the BBC. Debroy Somers conducted the Savoy Orpheans with Gershwin himself at the piano.[41] The piece was heard again in the United Kingdom during the second European tour of the Paul Whiteman Orchestra, most notably on April 11, 1926, at the Royal Albert Hall, with Gershwin in the audience. The Royal Albert Hall concert was recorded—though not issued—by the British record label His Master's Voice.[42][43]

By the end of 1927, Whiteman's band had performed Rhapsody in Blue approximately 84 times, and its recording sold a million copies.[7] However, in order for the entire piece to fit onto two sides of a 12-inch record, the rhapsody had to be played at a faster speed than usual in a concert, which gave it a hurried feel and some rubato was lost. Whiteman later adopted the piece as his band's theme song and opened his radio programs with the slogan "Everything new but the Rhapsody in Blue."[44]

In contrast to the warm reception by concert audiences,[40][3] professional music critics in the press gave the rhapsody decidedly mixed reviews.[46] Pitts Sanborn declared that the rhapsody "begins with a promising theme well stated" yet "soon runs off into empty passage-work and meaningless repetition."[38] A number of reviews were particularly negative. One opinionated music critic, Lawrence Gilman—a Richard Wagner enthusiast who would later write a devastating review of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess—harshly criticized the rhapsody as "derivative," "stale," and "inexpressive" in New-York Tribune review on February 13, 1924.[47][45]

Other reviewers were more positive. Samuel Chotzinoff, music critic of the New York World, conceded that Gershwin's composition had "made an honest woman out of jazz,"[22] while Henrietta Strauss of The Nation opined that Gershwin had "added a new chapter to our musical history."[5] Olin Downes, reviewing the concert in The New York Times, wrote:

This composition shows extraordinary talent, as it shows a young composer with aims that go far beyond those of his ilk, struggling with a form of which he is far from being master.... In spite of all this, he has expressed himself in a significant and, on the whole, highly original form.... His first theme... is no mere dance-tune... it is an idea, or several ideas, correlated and combined in varying and contrasting rhythms that immediately intrigue the listener. The second theme is more after the manner of some of Mr. Gershwin's colleagues. Tuttis are too long, cadenzas are too long, the peroration at the end loses a large measure of the wildness and magnificence it could easily have had if it were more broadly prepared, and, for all that, the audience was stirred and many a hardened concertgoer excited with the sensation of a new talent finding its voice.[3]

Overall, a recurrent criticism leveled by professional music critics was that Gershwin's piece was essentially formless and that he had haphazardly glued melodic segments together.[48]

Years after its premiere, Rhapsody in Blue continued to divide music critics principally due to its perceived melodic incoherence.[49] Constant Lambert, a British conductor, was openly dismissive towards the work:

The composer [George Gershwin], trying to write a Lisztian concerto in a jazz style, has used only the non-barbaric elements in dance music, the result being neither good jazz nor good Liszt, and in no sense of the word a good concerto.[50]

In an article in The Atlantic Monthly in 1955, Leonard Bernstein, who nevertheless admitted that he adored the piece,[51] 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.[51][52]

Gerswhin's work has been cited by writers and scholars as embodying the Jazz Age's zeitgeist with its flappers and speakeasies. Above: Patrons and a flapper await the opening of a speakeasy in 1921.

According to critic Orrin Howard of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Gershwin's rhapsody "made an indelible mark on the history of American music, on the fraternity of serious composers and performers—many of whom were present at the premiere—and on Gershwin himself, for its enthusiastic reception encouraged him to other and more serious projects."[94]

Howard posits that the song's legacy is best understood as embodying the cultural zeitgeist of the Jazz Age: "Beginning with that incomparable, flamboyant clarinet solo, Rhapsody is irresistible still, with its syncopated rhythmic vibrancy, its abandoned, impudent flair that tells more about the Roaring Twenties than could a thousand words, and its genuine melodic beauty colored a deep, jazzy blue by the flatted sevenths and thirds that had their origins in the African-American slave songs."[94] Although Gershwin's rhapsody "was by no means a definitive example of jazz in the Jazz Age,"[95] music historians such as James Ciment and Floyd Levin have similarly concurred that it is the key composition that encapsulates the spirit of the era.[96][97]

As early as 1927, writer F. Scott Fitzgerald opined that Rhapsody in Blue idealized the youthful zeitgeist of the Jazz Age.[98] In subsequent decades, both the latter era and Fitzgerald's related literary works have been often culturally linked by critics and scholars with Gershwin's composition.[99] Accordingly, Rhapsody in Blue was used as a dramatic leitmotif for the character of Jay Gatsby in the 2013 film The Great Gatsby, a cinematic adaptation of Fitzgerald's 1925 novel.[100][101]

Various writers, such as American playwright Terry Teachout, have also likened Gershwin himself to the character of Gatsby due to his attempt to transcend his lower-class background, his abrupt meteoric success, and his early death while in his thirties.[99]

Rhapsody in Blue has been also interpreted as a musical portrait of Jazz Age New York.

Rhapsody in Blue has been also interpreted as a musical portrait of early 20th-century New York City.[102] Culture scribe Darryn King wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "Gershwin's fusion of jazz and classical traditions captures the thriving melting pot of Jazz Age New York."[102]

Likewise, music historian Vince Giordano has opined that "the syncopation, the blue notes, the ragtime and jazz rhythms that Gershwin wrote in 1924 was really a feeling of New York City in that amazing era. The rhythm of the city seems to be in there."[102] Pianist Lang Lang echoes this sentiment: "When I hear Rhapsody in Blue, I see the Empire State Building somehow. I see the New York skyline in midtown Manhattan, and I already see the coffee shops [in] Times Square."[102]

Accordingly, the composition was used in this context in a New York segment for the 1999 Walt Disney Pictures animated film Fantasia 2000, in which the piece is used as the lyrical framing for a stylized animation set drawn in the style of famed illustrator Al Hirschfeld.[103] It was also used in the opening sequence of Woody Allen's 1979 film Manhattan.[104] The film serves as "a cinematic love letter to the city, which set its opening montage of quintessential New York scenes to Gershwin's famed jazz concerto."[102]

Gershwin's rhapsody has also influenced a number of composers. In 1955, Rhapsody in Blue served as the inspiration for a composition by the noted accordionist/composer John Serry Sr. which was subsequently published in 1957 as American Rhapsody.[105] Brian Wilson, leader of The Beach Boys, stated on several occasions that Rhapsody in Blue is one of his favorite pieces. He first heard it when he was two years old, and recalls that he "loved" it. According to biographer Peter Ames Carlin, it was an influence on his Smile album.[106] Rhapsody in Blue also inspired a collaboration between blind savant British pianist Derek Paravicini and composer Matthew King on a new concerto, called Blue premiered at the South Bank Centre in London in 2011.[107]

Rhapsody in Blue was played simultaneously by 84 pianists at the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.[60][108] Pianists Herbie Hancock and Lang Lang performed Rhapsody in Blue at the 50th Grammy Awards on February 10, 2008.[109] Since 1980,[110] the piece is used by United Airlines in their advertisements, in pre-flight safety videos, and in the Terminal 1 underground walkway at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.[111][112]