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Broadway collaboration of composer George
Gershwin and his lyricist brother Ira.
Funny
Face
became the rst show produced at the new-
ly constructed Alvin
eatre, where it opened
on November ,
. Fred and Adele Astaire
again appeared as siblings, Jimmy Reeve and his
younger sister Frankie.
e music of
MARVIN HAMLISCH (1944–
2012)
made his name a household word—from
the theme song and score to the motion picture
e Way We Were
to his adaptation of Scott Jo-
plin’s music in
e Sting
to his smash-hit musi-
cal
A Chorus Line
. Kevin Cole’s
Marvin’s Medley
surveys award-winning songs from the
s:
the title theme from
e Way We Were
and “At
the Ballet” and “What I Did for Love” from
A
Chorus Line
.
e Way We Were
( ) earned
Hamlisch two Academy Awards, for Best Origi-
nal Dramatic Score, and Best Original Song (for
“ e Way We Were”). Later in the decade came
A Chorus Line
(
), which earned Hamlisch a
Tony Award, the New York Drama Critics’ Cir-
cle Award, the
eatre World Award, and the
Pulitzer Prize, and was then the longest-running
Broadway show in history.
e team of
RICHARD RODGERS
and Oscar
Hammerstein II completed a new musical about
once every two years.
Carousel
, based on the play
Liliom
by Ferenc Molnár, was nished in
.
e original run at the Majestic eatre, open-
ing on April , lasted for
performances.
e co-creators decided to reduce the amount
of spoken dialogue in order to focus more atten-
tion on the musical numbers. Molnár’s Budapest
carnival barker Liliom underwent few transfor-
mations to become Billy Bigelow, the New En-
gland carnival barker. Billy, a shi y and boastful
character, falls in love with the virtuous Julie.
ey marry and have a daughter. When Billy
loses his job, he turns to crime and is shot dead
during a robbery attempt. Years later, he is of-
fered one chance to redeem himself. He attends
his daughter’s graduation as a spectral observer,
and restores her broken con dence.
Paul Whiteman announced a provocative con-
cert in the
New York Tribune
on January ,
.
e stated purpose of this musical event was to
decide “What is American music?” According
to the four-paragraph article, Whiteman had
assembled a distinguished panel of musicians
to decide the question. Among other music, the
program would contain three new composi-
tions: a jazz concerto by
GEORGE GERSHWIN
,
a “syncopated tone poem” by Irving Berlin, and
an American suite by Victor Herbert. Ira Ger-
shwin brought this article to his brother’s atten-
tion. George apparently had forgotten about the
“jazz concerto” project, which he had discussed
only in vague terms with Whiteman. With less
than six weeks before the concert, the surprised
musician began mapping out ideas.
Gershwin’s account of the creative process
appeared in
, one year a er his tragic death
from brain cancer: “I had no set plan, no struc-
ture to which my music must conform.
e
Rhapsody
, you see, began as a purpose, not as
a plan.” Shuttling between New York and Bos-
ton for the tryout of his musical
e Perfect
Lady
(produced on Broadway as
Sweet Little
Devil
), Gershwin’s imagination came alive to
the sounds of his passenger train “with its steely
rhythms, its rattlety-bang … I suddenly heard—
even saw on paper—the complete construction
of the
Rhapsody
from beginning to end.” Ger-
shwin imagined a grand nationalistic essay, “a
musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast
melting pot, of our incomparable national pep,
our blues, our metropolitan madness.”
Whiteman’s “An Experiment in Modern
Music” took place as scheduled on February .
Countless socialites and musical dignitaries
crowded Aeolian Hall for this major event.
Rhapsody in Blue
occupied the next-to-last sec-
tion. Given the press of time, Gershwin allowed
Ferde Grofé to orchestrate the score. Whiteman
conducted from an incomplete score. Gershwin
improvised many solo piano passages, then nod-
ded to the conductor when the orchestra should
enter. Rhapsodic elements exist in the numerous
tempo changes and the long unaccompanied pi-
ano solos. e speci c tempo sequence might be
viewed as a compressed symphony: moderate-
ly fast, scherzo, slow “love” theme, and toccata
nale.
Sheer melodic abundance disguises the care-
ful unity of Gershwin’s themes. All utilize the
blues scale (major and minor thirds and minor
seventh) and two share a common syncopat-
ed rhythm.
e exact sequence and selection
of themes varies considerably in di erent per-
forming versions, raising the perplexing ques-
tion: What exactly constitutes the
Rhapsody in
Blue?
is nebulous situation existed from the
very origins of the work and has persisted to the
present day. Gershwin le three recordings, two
with Whiteman’s ensemble and one piano roll
recorded in two sessions.
e “orchestral” ver-
sions have been signi cantly abridged, while the
piano version gives a more complete rendition.
Oddly, the clearest yet most sterile de nition of
this piece exists in copyright law: six melodies
and a motivic tag, any one of which constitutes
the
Rhapsody in Blue
. Listeners over the past
nine-plus decades have de ned this music in
other terms—an American classic.
–Program notes ©
Todd E. Sullivan
Marvin Hamlisch
George Gershwin at the piano
Announcement for Paul Whiteman’s 1924
“Experiment in Modern Music” at Aeolian Hall
Playbill
cover for
Carousel
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