Music: Gershwin - An American in Paris, Catfish Row, Promenade, Rhapsody in Blue, Cuban overture - MFSL [UDSACD 4007] Audiophil

George Gershwin, contrary to popular legend, did not invent American music. He did contribute to its definition and he did put in on the map-literally in concert halls throughout the world.
While Ives, Copland and Barber are admired and widely performed also, when American music is discussed, say, in France, the name of Gershwin is invariably invoked. Ravel, for example, was an unabashed Gershwin fan; Bartok, in Budapest during the Twenties, ordered all the new Gershwin piano music as soon as it was published. The great English master Vaughan Williams made a point when he said, "We must not make the mistake of thinking lightly of the very characteristic art of Gershwin." Alban Berg and Gershwin formed a curious mutual admiration society and the former's teacher, the formidable master, Schoenberg, had kind things to say of Gershwin, a frequent tennis partner, though found little good to say of most of his contemporaries.
This is not to imply that Gershwin was universally admired; he often received unfavorable reviews, some inspired by simple envy, some based on honest appraisal of his shortcomings as, for want of a better term, a musical thinker. Although Gershwin's formal musical education was more solid than legend has it, he was more likely to rely on intuition than the rule books, though he did attempt to "balance the head and the heart," as he once put it. Generally it was the heart (not to be confused with sentimentality) that won out: a natural, romantic flow of melody, brightened with crisp rhythms and enriched with haunting, blue-tinctured harmonies.
Gershwin's "very characteristic art" is rooted in American popular song. Even his severest critics grant him mastery of that exacting form; it is the structure of the larger works that disturbs them. Gershwin was conscious of flaws, but despite them the compositions work; they are effective and, consequently, remarkably popular, like the songs and dances from which they have evolved. If Gershwin began as a child of Tin Pan Alley, he rapidly graduated into the musical theater. He had a keen sense of showmanship and it might be conjectured that his musical form was more closely attuned to the lyric stage than to textbook definitions.
From 1924 on until the abrupt end of his life in 1937 Gershwin rarely missed a year in which he did not produce one of his larger works along with dozens of musical comedies. In 1924, it was Paul Whiteman, the self-proclaimed "King of Jazz" who in producing an "Experiment in Modern Music" catapulted Gershwin into creating the Rhapsody in Blue. He accomplished this first by announcing that Gershwin was writing a new work for the concert (to Gershwin's surprise) and then convincing the composer he could do it in the month before the concert. Although involved in preparing a new show for production, Gershwin was caught up in Whiteman's enthusiasm; the general structure of what he first planned to call "American Rhapsody" came to him during a train trip to Boston - the famous slow middle theme during a party at a friend's home. Work on January 7 (about three days after the newspaper announcement) and the more or less completed Rhapsody in Blue (Ira Gershwin's title idea) was ready for the concert on February 12, 1924. "More or less" because some of the piano passages were improvised during the performance. A notable contribution to the success of the Rhapsody was Ferde Grofe's orchestration which was, of course, geared to the special talents of the Whiteman band -although Gershwin's manuscript contains several suggestions along these lines, including the opening clarinet swoop. The later full symphonic orchestration was also done by Grofe' - although Gershwin chose to do the orchestration of all of his later large scale works.
In 1928 another ambitious project engaged Gershwin, although traces of it go back to a 1926 visit to Paris. Two years later, during a European tour with Ira and Leonore Gershwin and the Gershwin's sister Frances, Gershwin worked on his "tone poem for orchestra," An American in Paris. Much work was accomplished at the Majestic Hotel in Paris, notably the famous "homesickness blues" section about midway; the opening "walking theme" existed as early as 1926, as did the title of the piece. The American is unusual in that it is one of the few of his works in which Gershwin did not write himself a piano part.
The string writing hardly intimated in the gentle little Lullaby, is masterly. Gershwin referred to An American in Paris as a "rhapsodic ballet" and that it was "programmatic only in a general impressionistic way, so that the individual listener can read into the music such as his imagination pictures for him." The first performance, under Walter Damrosch, took place at Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928.
Gershwin produced no musical comedy score in 1932, but it was a full musical year nonetheless. His Second Rhapsody was premiered in Boston under Serge Koussevitsky in January, in February Gershwin made a visit to Havana and was fascinated by the indigenous instruments, several of which he brought back to New York with him. In July he spent the month composing a Rumba for orchestra which would employ his Cuban instruments. By August 1 he was busy orchestrating the work, which was then performed for the first time at Lewisohn Stadium, under Albert Coates, on August 16, 1932. The little travel piece was later retitled by Gershwin Cuban Overture.
The year 1933 was not a good one for Gershwin, there being two unsuccessful shows, Pardon My English and Let 'Em Eat Cake, produced. Curiously these musicals contain some truly remarkable Gershwin ideas, particularly the latter which must rank as one of Gershwin's most ingenious scores. During this same period, Gershwin continued his correspondence with DuBose Heyward initiated in March 1932, and work had begun on setting Heyward's novel Porgy, to music.
To help finance work on the opera Gershwin became host of a radio show, "Music by Gershwin," and early in 1934 toured with an orchestra. For the tour he devised one of his most delightful works, Variations on I Got Rhythm. Begun during a vacation in Palm Beach, Florida, he continued work during a stopover with the Heywards in Charleston, South Carolina. Dorothy Heyward, who had transformed her husband's novel into the play then being used as the basis for the opera, was impressed with Gershwin's ability to work on so complex a piece away from the piano, since the Heywards did not have one at the time. Gershwin's cross-country tour began on January 14, 1934, when the Variations was performed for the first time.
Twenty-eight days later Gershwin was back in New York and, except for his radio chores, devoted himself to his work with Heyward; during a summer vacation he joined Heyward in the south for a few weeks to study the local music first hand. After months of hard work, nine of them spent on orchestration alone, Gershwin noted in his score, "Finished August 23, 1935." After a tryout in Boston, where cuts were made and where it was well received, Porgy and Bess opened in New York on October 10, 1935. Though it had a mildly successful run, and "mixed" notices, Gershwin's most ambitious undertaking expired during a road tour with a substantial loss of money.
Gershwin was disappointed, naturally; he knew he had put the best of himself into Porgy and Bess and never lost faith in the opera (tragically, the world-wide success did not come until after his death). Hoping to salvage some of the music, including some of the passages eliminated before the Boston opening, Gershwin fashioned an extensive suite of its music which was performed for the first time in Philadelphia under Alexander Smallens on January 21, 1936. Gershwin's death in the summer of the following year led to the suite's eclipse, until it was rediscovered in 1958 and retitled Catfish Row by Ira Gershwin to differentiate from the other, not so effective, Porgy and Bess Suites.
The suite is in five sections: "Catfish Row" which consists of the entire opening of the opera through the song "Summertime," which is preceded first by the orchestral Introduction, then by the Jazzbo Brown Piano Music; a brief reference to the fugue to come leads to the second section, "Porgy Sings" ("I Got Plenty o' Nothin'" and "Bess, You Is My Woman Now"), the third in entitled "Fugue" (The Death of Crown), fourth, "Hurricane" (Opening Scene 3, Act II and Hurricane) and the final section, "Good Morning, Brother" (Opening Scene 3, Act III: Occupational Humoresque, "Good Morning, Brother," Children's Song: "Sure to go to Heaven" and "Lord, I'm on my Way").
The Gershwins returned to Hollywood in 1936 to write film songs again; the result was two of his best scores, Shall We Dance and Damsel in Distress; (the songs for The Goldwyn Follies were not all completed when Gershwin succumbed to a brain tumor on July 11, 1937). One of the delights of Shall We Dance, devised for the popular Astaire-Rogers team, was an amusing sequence long known as "Walking the Dog." Scored for a small orchestra of strings, woodwinds and piano, it was happily reconstructed from sketches, the soundtrack of the film and the memories of Gershwin devotees by Ira Gershwin and eventually published as Promenade. This charming interlude was Gershwin's first instrumental composition, although in the last year of his life, he spoke of composing a string quartet and had begun jotting down thematic ideas. But now only the winning Lullaby remains of that genre.
— Edward Jablonsky

The Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra,
America's second oldest orchestra, has proudly maintained a great musical tradition for over a century. This ensemble has taken its place among the foremost orchestras of the United States. Its home since 1968 has been elegant Powell Symphony Hall, which is noted for its fine acoustic qualities. Since its founding in 1880, the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra's season has grown from six annual concerts to more than 200 performances, including several different concert series in Powell Hall, two Midwest tours, an annual Eastern tour, numerous student and educational concerts, a series of free outdoor concerts in Saint Louis and the Saint Louis County Pops.
Leonard Slatkin continues to be one of the most sought-after conductors in the country, having guested with such major ensembles as the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic and Minnesota Orchestra.
Born in Los Angeles, he began his musical studies as a child in a household in which music-making was a constant activity. His father, the late Felix Slatkin, was a celebrated conductor and violinist. His mother Eleanor Aller, a noted cellist in her own right, was a member along with her husband, of the Hollywood String Quartet. Leonard began his professional career as a pianist, playing numerous recitals with his brother, a cellist. He studied conducting with his father as well as with Jean Morel at the Julliard School, and Walter Susskind at Aspen. He made his conducting debut in Carnegie Hall when he was 22, performing with the Youth Symphony Orchestra of New York. In 1968 he came to Saint Louis at Maestro Susskind's invitation as Assistant Conductor; he was named Associate Conductor in the fall of 1971. In 1974 he was promoted to Associate Principal Conductor, and then succeeded Jerzy Semkow as the Music Director in 1979. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and Music Director of the Grant Park Concerts in Chicago. In 1996 he became Music Director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington D.C., a position he still retains today.
The American pianist Jeffrey Siegel has enjoyed a flourishing international career. Born into a musical family, he studied with Rudolf Ganz in his native Chicago, the legendary Rosina Lhevinne at The Julliard School and Nona Kabos in London. Critics on both sides of the Atlantic have been lavish in their praise: "An extraordinary interpretive musician" (London Daily Telegraph); "Dazzling....an artist who means every note he plays" (New York Times); "A magnificent artist who literally overflows with music" (Berlin Die Welt). He has appeared with every major American orchestra and in the leading musical capitals abroad with conductors such as Abbodo, Boulex, Dutoit, Levine, Maazel, Marriner, Mehta, Slatkin, Solti and Tennstedt. After hearing Mr. Siegel perform, Artur Rubinstein wrote, "I was deeply moved by your performance and enchanted with the beautiful tone you produced; I wish you much success with all my heart"... As a conductor, he has appeared with the Pittsburg Symphony, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony and the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra as well as orchestras In France, Scandinavia and South America. For thirteen years, Mr. Siegel served as Music Director of the Mainly Mozart Festival in Arizona. He brings to Gershwin's works a special artistry and flair - the rare combination of superb musicianship, virtuosity, poetry and a profound understanding and joyous communication of the composer's distinctively American musical idiom.

Tracks list:
01. Catfish Row (Suite from Porgy and Bess)
Introduction - Act I, Scene 1 06:10
Porgy Sings 05:17
Fugue 01:58
Hurricane - Act II, Scene 3 04:09
Good Mornin', Brother - Act III, Scene 3 07:38
02. An American In Paris 17:55
03. Promenade 03:12
Bonus tracks:
04. Rhapsody In Blue 17:57
05. Cuban Overture 10:25

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