(New York 26-IX-1898 / Beverly Hills [California] 11-VII-1937)
Dedicated to light music since childhood, he soon created a series of songs that gave him great popularity. However, he felt strongly attracted by the forms of symphonic music, and the best fruit of this constant ascent from the sphere of "light" music to that of more meditated music, Gershwin reached him in Porgy and Bess, the first genuinely American opera, based on motifs of the black people, on their songs and their psychology, and also redeemed at a universal level by a genius force that today no one can deny in Gershwin.
The instrumental production is also interesting because it allows us to explore the possibilities of elaborating on jazz's characteristics in art music. Following his example, a current of thought developed in America that tended to re-evaluate jazz in symphonic music. But Gershwin remains a unique and inimitable musician, one of the most excellent products—and perhaps the greatest—that the musical culture of the United States has produced to date.
Rhapsody in Blue for Piano and Orchestra (1924) - At only twenty-six years old, Gershwin wrote a composition destined to become the most popular of his entire production. In truth, this combination of constructive developments taken from classical music with elements typical of jazz (rhythms, melodic and harmonic inflections) is ingenious. For its inventive freshness, spontaneity, and naivety of discourse, it definitely imposes itself on the attention of every listener, whatever their personal attitude towards jazz. The piano part is linear in writing and essential: this short piece flows away with rapidity and great communicative force. It is enough to give us the full measure of Gershwin's incredible talent.
