Sliding into the Blues with Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
The Backstory
Rhapsody in Blue
Hello, I'm George Gershwin, and I'm glad you've joined me for the backstory of my Rhapsody in Blue. You'll learn how a piece I first turned down ended up on a New York stage in 1924, and why that refusal didn't last. When you're ready, give the Trainer a go , because on this site my fellow composers and I teach you to recognize our pieces whenever you hear them.
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A bandleader with a big idea
The whole thing began when the bandleader Paul Whiteman asked me for a piece like a concerto for an all-jazz concert he called "An Experiment in Modern Music". A concerto, if you've never met one, is simply a piece where one soloist gets to step out in front of an orchestra. I liked the idea, but I said no, because I simply didn't have the time. Whiteman, however, was not a man who gave up after one polite refusal.The newspaper knew before I did
On 4 January 1924, a New-York Tribune report announced that I was already hard at work on a jazz concerto. That was news to me, because I hadn't written a single note of it. Whiteman then mentioned that a rival bandleader, Vincent Lopez, might snap up the idea if I didn't want it. That did the trick, and I agreed, which means a false newspaper story ended up pushing me into something very true.Never a free minute
The timing was awful, since I was in rehearsals for my Broadway show Sweet Little Devil. So I had a theatre to run around in by day and a blank sheet of paper waiting for me at night. I still managed to start, and my pencil manuscript carries the date 7 January 1924. It's a bit like agreeing to bake a wedding cake while the kitchen is already full of other guests.A plot on the train to Boston
The story goes that the shape of the piece came to me on a train to Boston. I told the biographer Isaac Goldberg about it years later, and he wrote it down in 1931. I said I had a definite plot of the piece by the time I arrived, though nobody has ever confirmed the story independently. I'm happy to leave it that way, because the rhythm of the rails does seem to turn up somewhere in the music.What to call it
My first working title was American Rhapsody, which was honest enough but a little plain. Ira Gershwin then went to a gallery exhibition of Whistler's paintings. Those paintings made him think of colour and mood, and he suggested Rhapsody in Blue. The new title fit the music so well that I can hardly imagine it under any other name.The man with the orchestra in his head
I didn't orchestrate the piece myself, and I'm glad to say so, because Ferde Grofé did that work. I handed him the score in sections, and he turned my piano sketches into music for Whiteman's band. He finished on 4 February 1924, although Goldberg's account says it took only ten days, so the exact pace is a matter of debate. Either way, the premiere was coming closer much faster than I liked.A very long evening
The premiere took place on 12 February 1924 at Aeolian Hall in New York. The concert had 26 numbers on its program, and my piece came next to last. After me came only Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1, which is quite a dignified thing to be followed by. By the time my turn arrived, the audience had already heard a great deal of music, so I was glad to have a clarinet ready to wake everyone up.The part nobody wrote down
I sat at the piano while Whiteman conducted his Palais Royal Orchestra. I hadn't fully written out my own solo part, so I improvised some of it on the spot. That means nobody knows exactly what the premiere sounded like, and I'm afraid I can't tell you either. I had the saxophones and a banjo beside me, which gave the whole sound a lively, dance-hall flavour.Applause, arguments and a lost fortune
The audience responded strongly, but Whiteman still lost money on the concert, which must have stung. The critics were divided, as critics tend to be. Olin Downes praised the originality of the work, while Lawrence Gilman called it "derivative" and "stale". The music was published that same year, on 12 June 1924, by Harms, so people could soon play it at home.It never really left
Whiteman made the piece his theme song, and his 1927 recording sold about a million copies. Grofé later made a version for a full symphony orchestra in 1942, and that became the standard one for concert halls. You may have met the piece without knowing it, in Woody Allen's Manhattan, in Disney's Fantasia 2000, or in United Airlines advertising. My pencil manuscript now rests safely in the Library of Congress, which is a long way from a hurried train ride and a busy Broadway theatre.---
I hope you enjoyed learning how my Rhapsody in Blue came to be. Looking back, it still amazes me how much happened by chance: a newspaper report that ran ahead of me, a clarinettist's warm-up trick, and a title that my brother Ira found in a gallery full of paintings. Even so, I never knew exactly how that first night in 1924 would sound, because I improvised parts of the piano solo and never wrote them all down. That means nobody can say for sure what the audience heard, and I rather like leaving a little mystery in the story. There is still plenty more to discover about Rhapsody in Blue. You could look into how Ferde Grofé dressed the music in different orchestral colors over the years, or how the piece found its way into films and into the lives of people who had never set foot in a concert hall. If you're curious, please click on the links provided and keep exploring Rhapsody in Blue at your own pace.