{"id":1068,"date":"2018-07-01T14:35:16","date_gmt":"2018-07-01T18:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1068"},"modified":"2018-07-01T14:40:18","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T18:40:18","slug":"the-gershwin-moment-part-five-klemperer-tibbett-gerstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2018\/07\/the-gershwin-moment-part-five-klemperer-tibbett-gerstein.html","title":{"rendered":"The Gershwin Moment — Part Five: Klemperer, Tibbett, Gerstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

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As I\u2019ve had occasion to observe in my various George Gershwin blogs<\/a>, Gershwin and J. S. Bach are the two composers most malleable in performance. There is no Gershwin style. And if there is, there\u2019s full license to ignore it.<\/p>\n

The most recent \u201cPostClassical\u201d broadcast<\/a> on WWFM includes two little-known but essential Gershwin performances that break the mold. One is Otto Klemperer conducting his transcription of the Second Prelude as a dirge. \u00a0The other, from the same Hollywood Bowl Gershwin Memorial Concert of September 8, 1937, features Ruby Elzy, from the original Porgy and<\/em> Bess<\/em> cast, singing \u201cMy Man\u2019s Gone Now.\u201d Both calibrate shock and grief; Gershwin had been only 38. You can hear them at 48:52 and 57:18 of our broadcast.<\/p>\n

Elzy, who was scheduled to sing Aida<\/em> when she died in 1943 at the age of 35 from a botched operation (had she been white she would have had superior medical attention), is in Serena\u2019s great lament an operatic Billie Holiday. For Porgy\u2019s great lament \u2013 \u201cOh Bess, Oh Where\u2019s My Bess,\u201d my singer of choice is Lawrence Tibbett, the supreme American Verdi baritone, who recorded it in 1935 \u2013 that\u2019s at 1:04:13.<\/p>\n

The same PostClassical broadcast features Kirill Gerstein playing and discussing the improvised cadenza he interpolates in the Concerto in F on his terrific new Gershwin CD.<\/p>\n

The broadcast is called \u201cThe Russian Gershwin\u201d because most of the performances feature Russian- or Soviet-born artists: Gerstein, Jascha Heifetz, Genady Zagor, Vakhtang Kodanashvili. Gershwin was always \u00a0esteemed in Russia. Not so in the US, where American-born classical musicians long dismissed him as a dilettante, and orchestras marginalized him as a \u201cpops\u201d composer.<\/p>\n

No longer. But we\u2019re still catching up. Our broadcast concludes with Angel Gil-Ordonez\u2019s fabulous PostClassical Ensemble<\/a> performance of Gershwin\u2019s Cuban<\/em> Overture. Why in the world isn\u2019t this piece better-known? Maybe \u2013 as I speculate at 50:15 of part two — it\u2019s because the contrapuntal sophistication of Andalusian middle section long confounded notions of Gershwin the unschooled genius.<\/p>\n

LISTENING GUIDE<\/p>\n

PART ONE<\/p>\n

9:22 \u2013 George Gershwin speaks and plays<\/p>\n

15:50 \u2013 Rhapsody in Blue<\/em> performed by Genady Zagor and PostClassical Ensemble conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez (with improvisations)<\/p>\n

47:46 — Arnold Schoenberg\u2019s eulogy for George Gershwin<\/p>\n

48:52 — Gershwin\u2019s Prelude No. 2, as arranged and conducted by Otto Klemperer at the Hollywood Bowl Gershwin Memorial Concert<\/p>\n

57:18 \u2013 Ruby Elzy sings \u201cMy Man\u2019s Gone Now\u201d at the Gershwin Memorial Concert<\/p>\n

1:04:13 \u2013 Lawrence Tibbett sings \u201cOh Bess, Oh Where\u2019s My Bess\u201d<\/p>\n

1:10:21 \u2013 Jascha Heifetz plays his own arrangement of \u201cSummertime\u201d<\/p>\n

PART TWO<\/p>\n

00:00 \u2013 Kirill Gerstein plays Earl Wild\u2019s arrangement of \u201cI Got Rhythm\u201d<\/p>\n

4:24 \u2013 Kirill Gerstein\u2019s improvised cadenza for the Gershwin concerto mvmt 2<\/p>\n

6:41 \u2013 Gerstein discusses his cadenza<\/p>\n

13:10 \u2013 Gershwin Piano Concerto, mvmt 2, performed by Gerstein and St. Louis Symphony conducted by David Robertson<\/p>\n

26:54 \u2013 Gershwin Concerto, mvmt 3, performed by Vakhtang Kodanashvili and PCE conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez<\/p>\n

37:41 \u2013 Gershwin Cuban Overture, performed by PCE conducted by Gil-Ordonez<\/p>\n

53:00 \u2013 Jascha Heifetz plays his own arrangement of \u201cMy Man\u2019s Gone Now\u201d<\/p>\n

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              As I\u2019ve had occasion to observe in my various George Gershwin blogs, Gershwin and J. S. Bach are the two composers most malleable in performance. There is no Gershwin style. And if there is, there\u2019s full license to ignore it. The most recent \u201cPostClassical\u201d broadcast on WWFM includes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-he","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1068"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1074,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1068\/revisions\/1074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}