George Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue

George Gershwin

Born in 1898 to Russian immigrants who moved to New York in the 1890s, George Gershwin was an America pianist and composer. Unlike many other composers, Gershwin did not start hearing music in his household at a very early age. He was not around music until his parents bought their first piano in 1910. Although his parents originally bought the piano for George’s older brother, George ended up quickly exceling at playing piano. He started out taking lessons from teachers around the neighborhood he lived in and then was accepted as a pupil of Charles Hambitzer (Crawford).

Music became a larger part of Gershwin’s life when he dropped out of high school. At the age of fifteen years old, Gershwin was hired by a music publishing

company, Jerome H. Remick & Co. as a song plugger, which is a sales person who publicizes the songs of the company by performing them for others. The immense amount of hours playing and working on the keyboard and piano caused Gershwin to improve his playing even more, and he became a polished vocal accompanist. During this time, Gershwin also started to compose pieces of his own on the piano. Eventually, Gershwin left Jerome H. Remick & Co. and transitioned from playing commercial music to the Broadway musical stage in 1917 (Hyland). Although Gershwin had few published works, he was signed to the T.B. Harms music publishing company for a weekly salary and royalties for the rights to any music that he may compose in the future (Crawford). Broadway shows began to feature Gershwin’s music, and his first full Broadway score was the musical, “La La Lucille”, which came out when he was twenty years old (Crawford).
As Gershwin seemed to have a promising career at an early age, and he became to be more well-known in the music industry as he wrote more songs for Broadway shows. In 1920, Gershwin released his first hit song that he composed, “Swannee”, sang by Al Jolson who was a popular singer during that time period. Gershwin’s career in Broadway tremendously grew as he was creating music for more various shows for American and British audiences. In 1923, Gershwin was introduced to the concert stage (Crawford). The concert audience members who listened to Gershwin play at various concert halls described the music he played on the piano as upbeat and lively dance music. The music that Gershwin played at concert halls was different from the classical music that was typically played. Gershwin was the first musician to create the crossover creating music for Broadway musicals to concert halls (Hyland). Eventually, the style of music that Gershwin composed and played became to be known as jazz (Crawford).
The event that revolutionized the music history by bringing jazz music to the concert hall was the premiere of “Rhapsody in Blue” at the Aeolian Hall in New York in 1924.

This program was publicized as “An Experiment in Modern Music” and was organized by Paul Whiteman, a dance orchestra leader (Crawford.) During the time period, jazz music was enjoyed by the urban public, but criticized by music critics and not played by professional concert musicians. Because of this, Whiteman wanted to bring jazz to the world of concert music and used Gershwin’s composition, “Rhapsody in Blue”, to do so at the concert with Whiteman’s orchestra. Whiteman’s promotion of the concert and public practices attracted many critics to attend the concert and made it well-publicized to the general public. From the concert, the “Rhapsody in Blue” earned the approval of the audience and grabbed the attention of many music critics. For the first time, jazz became an accepted genre of music to be played in concert halls and this made an impact in the history of music because jazz music, which was once thought of as just lively dance music for the public and avoided by the concert hall audience and musicians, became revolutionized through syncopated symphony arrangements and played in concert halls. From the concert, “An Experiment in Modern Music”, Gershwin became known for being the composer who brought the genre of jazz music to concert halls

(Hyland).
Gershwin’s composition, “Rhapsody in Blue”, allowed Gershwin’s career and fame to flourish, and he received a quarter of a million dollars from the recordings and performances of the composition. After receiving his fame and fortune, Gershwin continued to compose songs for many Broadways along with his brother, Ira, who created the lyrics for them. Some successful musicals that Gershwin composed were “Girl Crazy” and “Of Thee I Sing” which won a Pulitzer Prize for drama (Crawford). From his fame, Gershwin became a music celebrity and was welcomed in countries in Europe as well. From his career, Gershwin composed many Broadway musicals and compositions for concert halls. Although he died from a brain tumor at the age of thirty-eight, Gershwin’s legacy remains to have a tremendous impact on music (Hyland). His unique and talented skills as a piano player and composer broke the boundaries for the first time by bringing music from the urban public to the elegant concert halls and composing successful Broadway musicals and compositions for the concert halls.