Review Summary: Maybe the first American one-hit-wonder crafts a timeless portrayal of America in the 1920's
Debuting in New York’s Aeolian Hall on February 12th 1924 near the end of a program called “Experiments in Modern Music”, a 26 year old, unknown composer helped legitimize jazz for the general populace and redefine what classical music can be. Gershwin’s
Rhapsody In Blue took the stuffy rigidity of classical music and laced it with a fresh new sound Harlem was kicking around the cabaret clubs called
jazz to make arguably the most unequivocally American piece of music ever recorded. Those who saw the Fantasia 2000 rendition of this piece saw an excellent representation of the music.
Rhapsody In Blue is the musical heartbeat of early 1920’s American industrialism in New York. The song opens up with the clarinet playing one of the most famous bars in music history signaling the rise of the sun to another day. And what a busy day this is, the piano takes the lead and dances through a hectic arrangement of diverse and impeccably performed instrumentation, with skyrocketing, feverish highs and mellow lows all while never losing its perpetual sparkling personality.
The sheer ease Gershwin shows in portraying the hustle and bustle of the times in his music is nothing short of remarkable. However, putting aside all the vibrant imagery
Rhapsody In Blue is simply a magnificently performed piece of work. In traditional classical fashion there is a myriad of instruments accompanying the central instrument the piece was written for (in this case the piano), but in non-traditional fashion, Gershwin’s utilization of his backdrop allows for complete clarity of all sounds, ranging as bombastic as the omnipresent loud, crashing string section to as small as a bell sparsely but expertly placed throughout the piece. Though the crescendos are the more memorable portions of
Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin shows remarkable restraint during the piece’s softer moments as well. The jazz cadence he frequently employs with the piano oozes a tangible energy and you can almost feel how his fingers tremble on the keys in anticipation of the next explosion. The diversity of the work even while revolving around a simple piano hook is evident from the opening passage, to the gentle downturn in tempo around the 11:30 mark, to the exuberant finale. The listener really feels they’ve had a day in the life of Joe Worker.
Probably my favorite aspect
Rhapsody in Blue is how upbeat and lively it is. I would even go as far as to say writing a good, poignant piece of upbeat, jovial music that really makes you
feel is much more difficult than penning a slow, somber number with the same goal in mind. In order to really get people to buy what you’re selling, the music requires a certain energy that captures and holds the listener’s attention but without becoming nauseatingly saccharine or simplistic as to elicit eye-rolling. With
Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin accomplished that but also started a paradigm shift in American music. Up until that point the general public thought human musical expression had reached its apex with classical music, after all it takes a special kind of person, some may say a genius, to write a symphony or concerto. Gershwin brought to light that human musical expression takes many forms, one just has to have a story.
