12: Gershwin Biography

Um... so, we've clearly all been in way over our heads the last week or so. I've been sick and barely had a lucid thought. So I won't be writing a recap or our wonderful evening listening to George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue. Nor will I provide the detailed and fascinating biographical background that J dug up about the Rhapsody, and the concert wherein it premiered.

Nope. Instead I am going to cop out and share with you a link to a review of a fascinating new biography of Gershwin from the Washington Post:

It is a truth universally acknowledged that George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote some irresistible melodies. After that, the debate begins.

Was Gershwin an inspired tunesmith, pure and simple, who nevertheless remained a rank amateur when he attempted to compose in larger forms, such as in his piano concertos or for the opera house? Or did his early death rob us of a distinctly American master, somebody who might have yoked all the strains that made up our wondrously polyglot musical culture of the mid-20th century - jazz, blues, popular song, European classical stylings, modernist experimentation - into a sustained and unified expression?

Larry Starr's valuable new book, titled simply George Gershwin, makes a strong case for the latter view. This is not a traditional biography (although Starr shares some potent biographical vignettes in a section called "Snapshots") but rather an insightful, technically intricate yet easy-to-follow study of Gershwin's music, particularly as it came out of the Broadway tradition.