George Gershwin (1898–1937) was one of the most influential American composers of the twentieth century, celebrated for bringing the worlds of classical music, jazz, and popular song together in a distinctly American style.
Gershwin also sought to bridge popular music and the concert hall. His groundbreaking Rhapsody in Blue (1924) combined jazz influences with orchestral writing, while the Concerto in F and An American in Paris further established his reputation as a serious concert composer. Gershwin died in Hollywood in 1937 at only 38, but his music remains a defining expression of American musical life.
Ladies and gentlemen, friends of Classical Archives,
My name is George Gershwin, and I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1898 — a city alive with rhythm, noise, and dreams. I grew up surrounded by the sounds of the streets: the clatter of wagons, the laughter of children, the syncopation of ragtime drifting from open windows. Those sounds — half chaos, half heartbeat — became my first teachers.
I began as a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley, earning fifteen dollars a week playing other people’s tunes. But soon I wanted to write my own. My first big hit, Swanee, took off after Al Jolson sang it, and suddenly I was part of the great American experiment — trying to make something new out of the mixture of classical music, jazz, and popular song.
I was lucky to work with some of the best — my brother Ira, of course, whose lyrics gave wings to my melodies; the conductor Paul Whiteman, who encouraged me to write Rhapsody in Blue; and the great Maurice Ravel, who, when I asked to study with him in Paris, smiled and said, “Why become a second-rate Ravel when you can be a first-rate Gershwin?” I admired Debussy and Stravinsky, too — but my language was born of New York, not Europe.
What I tried to do was simple: to bring the vitality of jazz into the concert hall and the discipline of classical form into the music of the streets. An American in Paris was my love letter to a city of light and horns and footsteps. And Porgy and Bess — that was my attempt to give opera a truly American voice, to make it sing with the sorrows and hopes of real people.
Some critics said I didn’t belong in either world — that I was too classical for jazz and too jazzy for classical. But I’ve always believed that music doesn’t care about categories; it only cares about truth, about feeling. Whether a melody comes from Harlem or Carnegie Hall makes no difference if it speaks to the heart.
I left this world too soon — in 1937, in Los Angeles, at just thirty-eight years old. But I like to think that somewhere, in a smoky club or a grand hall, someone is still tapping a foot to Rhapsody in Blue or humming Summertime. Because that’s what I always wanted my music to do — to bridge worlds, to make people feel alive.
Many thanks.
A Selection of Works by George Gershwin Available for Listening on Classical Archives
Please note that in order to listen to these works in full (instead of 1-minute clips), you must be a Classical Archives subscriber.
We invite you to join: A free 14-day trial is now available to first-time subscribers.
Stage Works
Works for Piano and Orchestra
- Piano Concerto in F
- Rhapsody in Blue, for piano and jazz orchestra
- Second Rhapsody (‘Rhapsody in Rivets’)
- Variations on ‘I Got Rhythm’
Orchestral Works
- Porgy and Bess, suite from the opera
- An American in Paris (tone poem)
- Catfish Row: Symphonic Suite from Porgy and Bess
- Cuban Overture
- Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture
- Promenade, ‘Walking the Dog’ (version for orchestra)
Chamber Music
Film Music
Recent Comments