Rhapsody in Blue: celebrating 100 years of Gershwin’s groundbreaking classical-jazz masterpiece

• George Gershwin’s 1924 composition Rhapsody in Blue is so timeless that it seems scarcely possible that he composed it 100 years ago.
• Its centenary offers us a special opportunity to celebrate this iconic work that defies time and place.

Setting the stage

• He had a highly original melodic gift, and his many songs and other compositions brought joy and optimism to his audiences.
• Gershwin’s musical education started with exposure to classical and popular compositions he heard at school in New York.
• Three years later, entertainer Al Jolson performed the Gershwin song Swanee in the musical Sinbad, which became an enormous success.
• Ira’s witty lyrics, often punctuated with wordplay and puns, received almost as much acclaim as George’s compositions and were fundamental to their success.

Melding classical music with jazz

• Throughout his career, Gershwin also focused on orchestral compositions, often melding musical styles in ways that brought special freshness and enduring grace to his works.
• His larger works involving orchestra include the opera Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue, a Piano Concerto, Cuban Overture and Second Rhapsody.
• He and Gershwin shared the notion of integrating elements of jazz and classical styles, and in late 1923, Whiteman asked Gershwin to compose a work for a concert he was planning called An Experiment in Modern Music, which was to take place at New York’s Aeolian Concert Hall, a classical venue.

• Gershwin incorporated into the Rhapsody hallmarks of jazz including expressive blue notes (flatted, or lowered, notes) long passages of syncopated rhythms, and onomatopoeic musical effects.
• He subsequently reflected:
  There had been so much chatter about the limitations of jazz, not to speak of the manifest misunderstandings of its function.
• There had been so much chatter about the limitations of jazz, not to speak of the manifest misunderstandings of its function.
• I believe it is tighter, edgier, more incisive and yet more intimate, embodying Gershwin’s idea of combining classical and jazz musical elements.

Robert Taub does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.