BREVARD MUSIC CENTER | OVERTURE
of Debussy’s approach to the poem lies in the shockingly vague melodic contours and wide orchestral sound palette that so perfectly explore the sensuous nature of the poem. GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra Premiered on December 3, 1925, in New York; conducted by Walter Damrosch, the composer was the soloist. Rhapsody in Blue is clearly Gershwin’s most successful and enduring orchestral work, yet he viewed it merely as a steppingstone toward greater things. In fact, Walter Damrosch commissioned the Piano Concerto in response to the premiere of the Rhapsody. When Gershwin accepted the commission, he was fully aware of the task ahead, since he actually had not orchestrated his Rhapsody in Blue (Ferde Grofé did that). The young, inexperienced composer therefore devoted the next few months to the study of orchestration and analysis of concertos. By the summer Gershwin felt up to the task, and he spent three months composing the concerto and one month orchestrating it. Wanting to be sure that his concerto would work, he hired sixty New York musicians at his own expense, which led to numerous revisions. The outcome is nothing short of astounding: a polished first concerto that belies Gershwin’s inexperience as composer of concert music. GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) Variations on I Got Rhythm Premiered on January 6, 1934, in Boston under the direction of Charles Previn with the composer as soloist. Always the showman and entrepreneur, Gershwin wanted to get his music out, so he agreed to a tour of 28 concerts in 28 cities in 28 days. His variations were composed as the new piece for the tour. On a 1934 radio broadcast, Gershwin described the work: After the introduction by the orchestra the piano plays the theme rather simply. The first variation is a very complicated rhythmic pattern [marked in the score “bitingly” and “with metronomic precision”] played by the piano while the orchestra takes the theme. The next variation is in waltz time. The third is a Chinese variation in which I imitate Chinese flutes played out of tune, as they always are. . . . Next the piano plays the rhythmic variation in which the left hand plays the melody upside down and the right plays it straight, on the theory that you shouldn’t let one hand know what the other is doing. Then comes the finale. GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937) An American in Paris Premiered on December 13, 1928, in Carnegie Hall under the direction of Walter Damrosch. An American in Paris is an unmatched American cultural icon that everybody recognizes but few know much about. While the 1951 movie and the symphonic poem share the same musical material, the story lines are completely unrelated. The movie offers the quintessential Hollywood love story, while Gershwin’s piece merely relates impressions of an American tourist. Even though the movie won several Oscars, it is Gershwin’s innovative
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score that continues to capture the imagination of concert audiences around the world. Gershwin offered the following description of the piece: This new piece, really a rhapsodic ballet, is written very freely and is the most modern music I’ve yet attempted. The opening part will be developed in typical French style, in the manner of Debussy and the Six, though all the themes are original. My purpose is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris, as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere. MAURICE RAVEL (1875-1937) Bolero Premiered at the Paris Opéra on November 22, 1928, as a ballet with choreography by Bronislava Nihinska and under the direction of Walter Straram. When Russian actress and dancer Ida Rubinstein asked Ravel to compose a ballet score for her, he initially came up empty. While on vacation, Ravel played a friend a melody with one finger and said, “Don’t you think this theme has an insistent quality? I’m going to try and repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.” That’s Bolero in a nutshell — a 15-minute orchestral crescendo using the simple Bolero rhythm as the main building block. The program for the ballet’s premiere provided the following scenario: Inside a tavern in Spain, people dance beneath the brass lamp hung from the ceiling. [In response] to the cheers to join in, the female dancer has leapt onto the long table and her steps become more and more animated. This was not what Ravel had envisioned. He had wanted an open-air setting in front of a factory, emphasizing the music’s mechanical drive. In the end the chosen scenario was irrelevant, as the wild success of Bolero is found not in the ballet but in the music, which contains all of the choreography the piece ever needed. -Siegwart Reichwald
Bolero became Ravel’s most famous composition despite his prediction that most orchestras would probably refuse to play it.