George Gershwin
George
Gershwin (1898 - 1937) was born in New York of European-Jewish
parents. His life changed at the age of 12 when a piano was wheeled
into his family home, and George took keenly to the instrument, rapidly
outgrowing all the local piano teachers. He started work at 16, in
the popular song industry. At the age of 21 he had his first hit song Swanee.
His older brother Ira Gershwin wrote the words (lyrics) for a stream of huge
hits after this, including Someone to Watch Over
me, Let's Call the Whole Thing off, and
Fascinating Rhythm, all 3 of which are available for listening
here on Musical Discovery.
Gershwin wanted to write works on a
larger scale, for symphony orchestra, and he asked Ravel
and Stravinsky for lessons in
composition. Both refused, on the grounds that Gershwin was already a greater
composer than they were. He went on to become an American composer who wrote
music in both the
modern popular style, for dance bands and jazz groups, and the modern (serious)
style for full symphony orchestra. He incorporated jazz into such symphonic works as
Rhapsody in Blue and
An American in Paris, and the opera Porgy and Bess,
all of which were enormously successful, and remain extremely popular to the
present day.