Summertime: George Gershwin's Life in Music

Summertime: George Gershwin's Life in Music PDF Author: Richard Crawford
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393635414
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 700

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Book Description
“Elegant and authoritative.” —Thomas Brothers, author of Help!: The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration New York City native and gifted pianist George Gershwin (1898–1937) blossomed as an accompanist before his talent as a songwriter opened the way to Broadway, where he composed a long run of musical comedies, many with his brother Ira as lyricist. But his aspirations reached beyond commercial success. Appealing to listeners on both sides of the purported popular-classical divide, his first instrumental composition, Rhapsody in Blue, was an instant classic. He pushed boundaries again a decade later with the groundbreaking folk opera, Porgy and Bess—his magnum opus. In 1936, he and Ira moved west to write songs for Hollywood, but their work was cut short when George developed a brain tumor. He died at thirty-eight, a beloved artist who had fashioned his own brand of American music. Drawing extensively from letters and contemporaneous accounts, acclaimed music historian Richard Crawford traces the arc of Gershwin’s remarkable life, seamlessly blending colorful anecdotes with a celebration of his unforgettable music-making.

Summertime: George Gershwin's Life in Music

Summertime: George Gershwin's Life in Music PDF Author: Richard Crawford
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393635414
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 700

Get Book Here

Book Description
“Elegant and authoritative.” —Thomas Brothers, author of Help!: The Beatles, Duke Ellington, and the Magic of Collaboration New York City native and gifted pianist George Gershwin (1898–1937) blossomed as an accompanist before his talent as a songwriter opened the way to Broadway, where he composed a long run of musical comedies, many with his brother Ira as lyricist. But his aspirations reached beyond commercial success. Appealing to listeners on both sides of the purported popular-classical divide, his first instrumental composition, Rhapsody in Blue, was an instant classic. He pushed boundaries again a decade later with the groundbreaking folk opera, Porgy and Bess—his magnum opus. In 1936, he and Ira moved west to write songs for Hollywood, but their work was cut short when George developed a brain tumor. He died at thirty-eight, a beloved artist who had fashioned his own brand of American music. Drawing extensively from letters and contemporaneous accounts, acclaimed music historian Richard Crawford traces the arc of Gershwin’s remarkable life, seamlessly blending colorful anecdotes with a celebration of his unforgettable music-making.

George Gershwin

George Gershwin PDF Author: Howard Pollack
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520933141
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 938

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Book Description
This comprehensive biography of George Gershwin (1898-1937) unravels the myths surrounding one of America's most celebrated composers and establishes the enduring value of his music. Gershwin created some of the most beloved music of the twentieth century and, along with Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter, helped make the golden age of Broadway golden. Howard Pollack draws from a wealth of sketches, manuscripts, letters, interviews, books, articles, recordings, films, and other materials—including a large cache of Gershwin scores discovered in a Warner Brothers warehouse in 1982—to create an expansive chronicle of Gershwin’s meteoric rise to fame. He also traces Gershwin’s powerful presence that, even today, extends from Broadway, jazz clubs, and film scores to symphony halls and opera houses. Pollack’s lively narrative describes Gershwin’s family, childhood, and education; his early career as a pianist; his friendships and romantic life; his relation to various musical trends; his writings on music; his working methods; and his tragic death at the age of 38. Unlike Kern, Berlin, and Porter, who mostly worked within the confines of Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin actively sought to cross the boundaries between high and low, and wrote works that crossed over into a realm where art music, jazz, and Broadway met and merged. The author surveys Gershwin’s entire oeuvre, from his first surviving compositions to the melodies that his brother and principal collaborator, Ira Gershwin, lyricized after his death. Pollack concludes with an exploration of the performances and critical reception of Gershwin's music over the years, from his time to ours.

The Cambridge Companion to Gershwin

The Cambridge Companion to Gershwin PDF Author: Anna Harwell Celenza
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108423531
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
Explores how Gershwin's iconic music was shaped by American political, intellectual, cultural and business interests as well as technological advances.

Summertime

Summertime PDF Author: Dubose Heyward
Publisher: Aladdin
ISBN: 9780689850479
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This classically illustrated picture book shows a sun-drenched slice of life for a family in the Southern countryside, inspired by the folk opera Porgy and Bess. A black family soaks up the sun, splashing in the pond, baking apple pie, and raising their voices in song at church.

The Gershwins and Me

The Gershwins and Me PDF Author: Michael Feinstein
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451645309
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Michael Feinstein was just 20 years old when he got the chance of a lifetime: a job with his hero, Ira Gershwin. During their six-year partnership, Feinstein blossomed under Gershwin's mentorship and Gershwin was reinvigorated by the younger man's zeal. Now, in The Gershwins and Me, Michael Feinstein shares unforgettable stories and reminiscences from the music that defined American popular song, along with rare Gershwin memorabilia he's collected through the years. Includes an accompanying CD packed with Feinstein's original recordings of 12 Gershwins' songs.

Rhapsody in Blue

Rhapsody in Blue PDF Author: George Gershwin
Publisher: Alfred Music
ISBN: 1457493438
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 42

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Book Description
To provide greater availability for a work of such importance, the original publishers secured from Gershwin a solo piano version wherein the orchestral parts are fused together with the solo piano part (PS0047). Due to concerns that the composer's arrangement presented too many technical demands to pianists not possessing the requisite technique, a modified arrangement was delicately solicited from pianists of the time. (Gershwin's untimely death precluded any modification from the composer himself.) Many attempts at technical modifications were rejected on ethical grounds until Herman Wasserman--who taught Gershwin to play the piano--submitted a manuscript which became this edition. Several prominent pianists who reviewed the score all attested to the amazing reduction in technical demands while retaining the clarity, sonority, and brilliance of the original. This edition is designed for Early Advanced pianists, although some sections, including the well-known Moderato middle section, are accessible to those performing at less-advanced levels.

Porgy Et Bess [Grabación Sonora]

Porgy Et Bess [Grabación Sonora] PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 63

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Book Description


Lyrics on Several Occasions

Lyrics on Several Occasions PDF Author: Ira Gershwin
Publisher: Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN: 9780879100940
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 436

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Book Description
One of the most distinguished lyric-writers of his time, Ira Gershwin wrote for his brother George as well as Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill, Harold Arlen and others. Limelight presents a selection of stage and screen lyrics written for sundry situations and now arranged in arbitrary categories, to which have been added many informative annotations and disquistions on their why and wherefore, their whom-for, their how, and matters associative. "Gershwin's comments, witty and irreverent, and his anecdotes about the making of many favorites, are invariably interesting and frequently surprising." Chicago Tribune

The Year that Made the Musical

The Year that Made the Musical PDF Author: William A. Everett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1009316508
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 499

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Book Description
Whether they appeared on Broadway or the Strand, the shows appearing in 1924 epitomized the glamor of popular musical theatre. What made this particular year so distinctive – so special – was the way it brought together the old and the new, the venerated and the innovative, and the traditional and the chic. William Everett, in his compelling new book, reveals this remarkable mid-Roaring Twenties stagecraft to have been truly transnational, with a stellar cast of producers, performers and creators boldly experimenting worldwide. Revues, musical comedies, zarzuelas and operettas formed part of a thriving theatrical ecosystem, with many works – and their leading artists – now unpredictably defying genres. The author demonstrates how fresh approaches became highly successful, with established leads like Marie Tempest and Fred Stone appearing in new productions even as youthful talents such as Florence Mills, Fred and Adele Astaire, Gertrude Lawrence and George Gershwin now started to make their mark.

Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words

Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words PDF Author: Michael Owen
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1324091827
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 523

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Book Description
The man behind some of the most memorable lyrics in the Great American Songbook steps from behind his brother’s shadow. The first lyricist to win the Pulitzer Prize, Ira Gershwin (1896–1983) has been hailed as one of the masters of the Great American Songbook, a period which covers songs written largely for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s. Now, in the first full-length biography devoted to his life, Michael Owen brings Ira out at last from the long shadow cast by his younger and more famous brother George. Drawing on extensive archival sources and often using Ira’s own words, Owen has crafted a rich portrait of the modest man who penned the words to many of America’s best-loved songs, like “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Embraceable You,” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” These fruits of Ira’s lyric genius sprang from the simplest of seeds: a hand-drawn weekly created for a cousin, an amateur newspaper co-written with friend and future lyricist Yip Harburg, columns in the school papers at Townsend Harris High School and, later, City College of New York. The details of his early literary efforts demonstrate both his developing ambition and the early signs of his talent. But while the road to becoming a successful lyricist was neither short nor smooth, it did lead Ira to the greatest creative partnership of his life. George and Ira Gershwin collaborated on a string of hit Broadway shows in the 1920s and 1930s that resulted in popular and financial success and spawned a long string of songs that have become classics. Owen offers fascinating glimpses of their creative process, drawing on Ira’s diaries and other contemporary sources, as well as the close relationship between the two brothers. Hollywood soon beckons and the brothers head west to California to work in the movie business. Greater fame and fortune seem right around the corner. George Gershwin died in a Los Angeles hospital in July 1937. He was only 38 years old. His death marked a stark dividing line in Ira’s life, and from that point on much of his time and energy was devoted to the management of his brother’s estate and the care of his legacy. Accustomed to living in his brother’s shadow, it now threatened to overwhelm him. He worked to balance all the administrative tasks with a new series of collaborations with composers like Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, Harry Warren, and Harold Arlen. Ira’s last Broadway work was in 1946, and several films and a book project—a collection of his lyrics with the stories behind them—occupied his later years along with the ongoing management of George’s affairs. Ira Gershwin’s work with George left an enduring mark on American culture, as recognized by the Library of Congress in 2007 when it established the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which has been awarded to artists like Paul Simon, Carole King, Tony Bennett, Paul McCartney, and Elton John. In Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words, Michael Owen brings the publicity shy lyricist into the spotlight he deserves.