Program Notes
GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)
RHAPSODY IN BLUE
Duration: ca. 16 minutes
Gershwin revealed his one-movement “jazz
concerto’’ on Feb. 12, 1924 in New York’s Aeolian
Hall. Paul Whiteman led the proceedings, billed as
an “Experiment in Modern Music’’ that drew many
of the city’s most prominent critics and socialites.
On the program’s second half, a slim, well-dressed,
20-something Jewish man walked on stage and
sat at the piano. Suddenly, the sound of a bluesy
clarinet snaked through the air, and the orchestra
– and audience – exploded. Nobody had heard
anything like it before.
Today, Rhapsody in Blue is etched into the cultural
landscape as arguably the single most-played
work by an American composer. It resides in the
repertoire of every orchestra, sells plane tickets on
televisions ads, and inspired Woody Allen to create
the film Manhattan. So successful was Rhapsody
that Gershwin could have lived the rest of his life off
rental fees from the score alone.
While Gershwin may have lacked the polished
training for idiomatic orchestral pieces, he molded
the orchestra to suit his personal voice.
Gershwin told a biographer in 1931 that Rhapsody
came to him on a train ride to Boston, and by the
time he arrived he had a definite musical plan.
“I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of
America,’’ he said, “of our vast melting pot, of our
unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan
madness.’’
Rhapsody is the first major American work to
incorporate jazz into an orchestra, but it was
not intended as a formal concerto in the sense of
Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. In fact, the piece doesn’t
follow traditional classical forms at all; rather, it
unfolds like a bluesy improvisation. Gershwin was
a fine pianist but knew little of orchestration – of
getting all those instruments to jive.
So he gave the two-piano score to Whiteman’s
arranger, Ferde Grofe, who would become famous
for his Grand Canyon Suite. Whiteman promoted the
concert heavily and at great expense – he lost $7,000
on that one day – but believed in his investment. He
would stage the work nearly a hundred times over
the next two years, adopted it as his band’s theme
song, enjoying the royalties of a 1927 recording that
sold a million copies.
THE FLORIDA OR 50 CHESTRA | 2018-2019
Rhapsody is really an impression of any city in
America, but it most likely belongs to New York,
notes Howard Pollack in his book George Gershwin:
His Life and Work. This quintessential American
piece, he writes, evokes “the hurdy-gurdies of the
Lower East Side, the calliopes of Coney Island,
the player pianos of Harlem, the chugging of
trains leaving Grand Central Station, the noisy
construction of midtown skyscrapers.”
ANTONIN DVORAK (1841-1904)
SYMPHONY NO. 7 IN D MINOR, OP. 70
Duration: ca. 35 minutes
“So, how would you describe the music of Dvorak?’’
a friend once asked. “Simple,’’ I said. “Put a cup of
Tchaikovsky in a blender, add a cup of Brahms, and
hit puree. There you have it – a Dvorak smoothie.’’
If only describing music was that easy. Dvorak
does borrow the flavors of his Russian and German
contemporaries, but simmers them into a style
firmly rooted in the soil of his native Bohemia.
Certainly, Dvorak is easy to digest. His music is
engaging, earthy, folksy. Dark moods always seem
to come up sunny.
Dvorak had an innate feel for a good tune, how to
send it into a rhythmic whirlwind, and keep listeners
in suspense over where things will go. These
qualities can be found in his nine symphonies,
dozen operas, three concertos, 50 chamber pieces,
and choral works and songs.
Dvorak took great pride in composing his Seventh
Symphony, which some call his finest work in the
form, although the Eighth and Ninth are more
popular. London’s Philharmonic Society , of which
Dvorak was an honorary member, commissioned
the work and in 1884 the composer sat down to
write a symphony “capable of moving the world’’
through its nobility, melancholy and muscular
strength.
Following its premiere in 1885, the Seventh took
on momentum and soon became part of every
professional orchestra’s playlist. The opening
movement is full of dark, concentrated ideas and
an almost electrical energy. The adagio, with the
woodwinds playing over pizzicato strings, offers
a quote from the Third Symphony of Brahms – a
work Dvorak revered. An energetic scherzo follows,
making use of a Czech dance called the furiant, and
the finale delivers an epic struggle between the keys
of D minor and D major. Given Dvorak’s agreeable
nature, listeners can only guess how it ends.
Program notes by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer and
former music critic for The Tampa Tribune. ©2018