(Solo Piano Version; Rhapsody in Blue catapulted George Ge...)
Solo Piano Version; Rhapsody in Blue catapulted George Gershwin into a world-famous career. It brought jazz into the concert hall using a musical language that was fresh, spontaneous, and uniquely American.
(Complete Works for Solo Piano; Includes performance notes...)
Complete Works for Solo Piano; Includes performance notes and helpful editorial pedal and fingering suggestions to aid in achieving a stylistic performance.
(The Music of George and Ira Gershwin - 20 of Their Most P...)
The Music of George and Ira Gershwin - 20 of Their Most Popular Works; Simply Gershwin is a collection of the most famous compositions by George and Ira Gershwin. Phrase markings, articulations, fingering and dynamics have been included to aid with interpretation, and a large print size makes the notation easy to read.
Ira Gershwin arose from modest beginnings to become one of the most famous American lyricists of the first half of the twentieth century. Along with his brother George and other famous songwriters including Aaron Copland and Jerome Kern, Gershwin wrote songs that won both public and industry acclaim. Some of his most famous songs include “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off”, “Of Thee I Sing”, “Long Ago and Far Away” and “The Man That Got Away”.
Background
Ira Gershwin was born Israel Gershvin on December 6, 1896, in Brooklyn, New York, United States, of Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. Morris and Rose Gershovitz, Gershwin’s parents, anglicized the family name to Gershvin when they arrived in the United States and then later changed it to Gershwin. Gershwin was born two years before his brother George. Gershwin’s father was a businessman who liked to live where he worked. Since Morris Gershwin owned a variety of businesses over time, including a pool parlor, restaurants, a cigar store, bakeries and Turkish baths, the family lived in twenty-eight different homes during Gershwin’s youth, twenty-five in Manhattan and three in Brooklyn.
Education
When Gershwin was ten years old, he and his brother George were introduced to the piano. George, the more outgoing of the brothers, was also the more gifted musician. Ira Gershwin was quiet and studious and more interested in books and writing. In grammar school he wrote humorous newsletters and in 1910 entered Townsend Harris Hall, a high school for gifted students, where he worked on the school paper. He graduated from the school in 1914. Megan Rubiner Zinn wrote in Contemporary Musicians that in high school Gershwin “found a kindred spirit in future lyricist Yip Harburg, who joined Ira in his publishing ventures. They discovered a shared love for ... sophisticated, witty, ironic, satiric, and playful poems and lyrics—and the operettas of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan.” Fascinating Rhythm author Deena Rosenberg wrote that “Ira and Harburg were especially impressed ‘that brilliant light verse could work so well in combination with clever tuneful music.’”
Gershwin entered the City College of New York but never completed a degree. While there he continued to write and submit short verse and poetry to newspapers and magazines, but he failed to make the grade in subjects like French and geometry, and finally decided to quit.
At the beginning of his career, Gershwin worked in a hotel owned by his father. He submitted a short article, “The Shrine”, to a magazine and was paid one dollar. He continued submitting, but had little success. He also worked at his father’s Turkish baths, where he met British playwright Paul M. Potter who advised Gershwin to learn American slang. Gershwin worked with a traveling carnival owned by a cousin, where he picked up the slang and where “he considered himself a 'floating soul,’ unsure where he would land”.
George, who had dropped out of high school to compose songs, pulled his brother from the carnival to write lyrics to his music. Their first songs were written around 1917, including “The Real American Folk Song (Is a Rag)". George soon began moving in his own direction and Gershwin, somewhat in the shadow of his brother’s growing fame, started working with other composers. One such collaboration was with Vincent Youmans, whose hits eventually included songs such as “Tea for Two”. Gershwin and Youmans went on to write Two Little Girls in Blue. According to Zinn, Gershwin at this time adopted the Professional name Arthur Francis, a combination of the names of his younger brother and a sister, because he refused to capitalize on his brother George’s fame. John S. Wilson wrote in the New York Times biographical Service that “‘Mr. Francis’ still manned to do some work on his own, collaborating with such well-known songwriters as B. G. De Sylva, Lew Gensler, and Joe Meyers.” In 1924 Gershwin’s brother George was invited by band leader Paul Whitman to write a jazz concerto for Whiteman’s concert, “An Experiment in Modern Music”. George produced “Rhapsody in Blue", which, at the time, received mixed reviews because of its indefinite style—not jazz, not classical—but which later became a huge success. It was in this same year, 1924, that George Gershwin admitted that he had a brother who worked with him, and for the smash hit Lady Be Good, billboards on Broadway proclaimed a show by the team of George and Ira Gershwin for the first time. The show featured a new brother-and-sister dance team, Fred and Adele Astaire, who became stars as a result.
From there, the brothers produced their musicals and musical comedies at break-neck speed: Primrose and Sweet Little Devil in 1924; Tell Me More and Tip-Toes in 1925; Americana and Oh, Kay! in 1926; Funny Face in 1927; Rosalie and Treasure Girl in 1928; Show Girl in 1929; and Girl Crazy in 1930. Those musicals made others famous too. Girl Crazy included “Embraceable You” and “But Not for Me,” sung by Ginger Rogers, and debuted a young Ethel Merman, who belted out “I Got Rhythm.” The jazz icons who sat in were Benny Goodman, Gene Krupa, Glenn Miller, Jack Teagarden, and Jimmy Dorsey. It was in 1930 that the second production of the Gershwins’ Strike Up the Band, the first of three political satires, was staged. It was originally staged in 1927 but was found objectionable by many due to writer George S. Kaufman’s heavy anti-war satire. The later production was toned down by Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind and was a success.
Two more satirical comedies followed. Of Thee I Sing opened in 1932 and included the songs “Who Cares” and “Love Is Sweeping the Country”, as well as the title song. It exceeded Strike Up the Band in popularity and critical acclaim. Let 'Em Eat Cake, produced in 1933, addressed the rising power of Adolf Hitler and the threats of communism and fascism, but was not a hit and closed after forty-six performances.
In the early 1930s the Gershwins began working with Hollywood. Their first film scores were Delicious in 1931 and the film version of Girl Crazy in 1932. George Gershwin contacted author Dubose Heyward in 1926 after reading Porgy and expressed his interest in a musical adaptation. He told Heyward, however, that he was not able to pursue the idea at the time, due to other commitments. When Gershwin again spoke with Heyward in 1932, plans were being formed for a production. Gershwin offered Heyward a version, using an “all-colored” cast. The original plan fell through, and the American folk opera Porgy and Bess about the black community of “Catfish Row” in Charleston, South Carolina, was produced by the Gershwins with mixed reviews. Initially, many questioned its cultural authenticity, but later stagings became more successful.
In 1936 Gershwin wrote songs for Vernon Duke’s Ziegfeld Follies of 1936. Later that year he and George signed a contract with RKO studios (Radio-Keith-Orpheum) and wrote scores for Shall We Dance, A Damsel in Distress and Goldwyn Follies. George began showing signs of illness in 1937 while working on Goldwyn Follies. After George died on July 11, 1937, from an undiagnosed brain tumor, Gershwin withdrew and wrote nothing for several years. In 1940, at the urging of Moss Hart, Gershwin agreed to work with Kurt Weill on Lady in the Dark. They then collaborated on the less successful The Firebrand of Florence, for the theater, and Where Do We Go from Here, for Hollywood; but Weill died at age fifty, ending their short successful partnership. Gershwin then worked with a number of composers including Aaron Copland, Harry Warrens, Burton Lane and Jerome Kern. “Long Ago and Far Away” from Cover Girl, Gershwin’s biggest hit, was written with Kern. Gershwin’s last theatrical production was Park Avenue with Arthur Schwartz. Gershwin moved to California and, with his last collaborator Harold Arlen, wrote A Star Is Born, starring Judy Garland.
Gershwin spent his remaining years writing lyrics for many of George’s musical compositions, some of which were used in films. He consulted on and oversaw performances of his brother’s work and organized documents and recordings for the Library of Congress. Gershwin compiled over one hundred of his lyrics written between 1918 and 1954 in Lyrics on Several Occasions, which was first published in 1959 and reissued in paperback.