What a great article Ethan. As a clarinetist, people have for years expected me to play this piece and I've always felt there's some kind of problem with it, without ever being able to articulate it. You've done a great job.
I gather your opinion raised hackles on some necks of NYTimes readers. As someone who grew up listening to the "pop" music of the 1950s and 60s, a work like "Rhapsody in Blue" was "square"....strings, horns, virtuosic piano, etc. As I got older and discovered the worth and world of Black Music as well as learning more about George Gershwin, I began to appreciate his symphonic works. Did he plunder elements of Black Music? Sure he did as did numerous of his contemporaries and others up until this day. Is the work an audience pleaser? For the most part, sure. If it brings people into symphony halls where they might then be exposed to William Grant Still, Florence Price, George Walker, Tyshawn Sorey (among others), then I can live with it. It's just that even today in most parts of the world, Black composers are rarely programmed. If your Opinion piece gets people talking about the musical geniuses that are underserved, even better!
Read the piece in the NYT yesterday. Very thought provoking. I myself am a pretty big fan of Rhapsody in Blue, but maybe that's a sign that I'm just a big old middlebrow. I'm gonna think about it. There was a part of your essay I really wanted to know more about... the section where you said that RiB had closed off rhythmic possibilities to others. I was pretty curious to hear a slightly more musically sophisticated (I'll bet your followers, like myself, can handle it 🤓 ) explanation, with examples, as I couldn't understand what you meant just from prose and my memory. I think if the NYT had been paying careful attention, your piece was a perfect chance to be an example of the excellent multi-media pieces they do. For instance, I'd love to know more about what Oscar Levant got wrong (with samples), what Cuban or other rhythms Gershwin smashed forever (with samples)... sounds to me like a perfect chance to make a viral Youtube video at the piano... It is interesting that on Hancock's Gershwin record (as I recall) he improvises on the Gershwin piano concerto, but RiB is not included in any way... By the way, thought the piano sonata was super cool and plan to listen carefully this weekend...
Wait, I got that wrong... Herbie H. improvises over Ravel's piano concerto, not Gershwin's... which of course is also a very interesting choice. (For those who avoid GG as too middlebrow, the connection is that Gershwin greatly admired Ravel, to my knowledge, and met Ravel when Ravel was traveling in the US...)
Wow, Ethan, you sure stirred up the middlebrow hornet’s nest with this one. What a reader response! A healthy and balanced essay I think, despite the unfortunate headline, which, divorced from context, distorts the reader’s perspective from the top. If I may, I feel compelled to point out (because I was in the middle of it) that Herbie H, in the memoir you quoted, immediately elaborates further on the evolution of a proposed Gershwin project to commemorate his 100th birthday, into Gershwin’s World, which encompasses a wide scope of repertoire, from W.C. Handy to Ravel, and James P. Johnson to—yes—Duke Ellington in an attempt to interpret part of a historical musical milieu. The breadth of Herbie’s supporting cast is testimony to the richness of the idea, which was equally the his creation and that of his producer, the endlessly creative, iconoclastic, and occasionally controversial Robert Sadin. It’s finally worth noting that Sadin was the arranger and conductor on Marcus Roberts’ “expanded” version of RiB on Roberts’ Portraits in Blue album of the following year. (That album also revisits the James P. Johnson connection to GG.)
I just read through (and the NYT piece) and having no expertise whatsoever am embarrassed to say we were listening to Gershwin yesterday. There was a PBS piece that stated that not only Gershwin but Levant thought very little of it. Other than it was a request.
You’ve spurred me to listen to those artists he used as inspiration for creating it. Thanks
Someone touched the third rail! The reader comments made me smile. Stir that pot - love it. Thx.
What a great article Ethan. As a clarinetist, people have for years expected me to play this piece and I've always felt there's some kind of problem with it, without ever being able to articulate it. You've done a great job.
Right on, David, thanks so much!!
I gather your opinion raised hackles on some necks of NYTimes readers. As someone who grew up listening to the "pop" music of the 1950s and 60s, a work like "Rhapsody in Blue" was "square"....strings, horns, virtuosic piano, etc. As I got older and discovered the worth and world of Black Music as well as learning more about George Gershwin, I began to appreciate his symphonic works. Did he plunder elements of Black Music? Sure he did as did numerous of his contemporaries and others up until this day. Is the work an audience pleaser? For the most part, sure. If it brings people into symphony halls where they might then be exposed to William Grant Still, Florence Price, George Walker, Tyshawn Sorey (among others), then I can live with it. It's just that even today in most parts of the world, Black composers are rarely programmed. If your Opinion piece gets people talking about the musical geniuses that are underserved, even better!
Read the piece in the NYT yesterday. Very thought provoking. I myself am a pretty big fan of Rhapsody in Blue, but maybe that's a sign that I'm just a big old middlebrow. I'm gonna think about it. There was a part of your essay I really wanted to know more about... the section where you said that RiB had closed off rhythmic possibilities to others. I was pretty curious to hear a slightly more musically sophisticated (I'll bet your followers, like myself, can handle it 🤓 ) explanation, with examples, as I couldn't understand what you meant just from prose and my memory. I think if the NYT had been paying careful attention, your piece was a perfect chance to be an example of the excellent multi-media pieces they do. For instance, I'd love to know more about what Oscar Levant got wrong (with samples), what Cuban or other rhythms Gershwin smashed forever (with samples)... sounds to me like a perfect chance to make a viral Youtube video at the piano... It is interesting that on Hancock's Gershwin record (as I recall) he improvises on the Gershwin piano concerto, but RiB is not included in any way... By the way, thought the piano sonata was super cool and plan to listen carefully this weekend...
Wait, I got that wrong... Herbie H. improvises over Ravel's piano concerto, not Gershwin's... which of course is also a very interesting choice. (For those who avoid GG as too middlebrow, the connection is that Gershwin greatly admired Ravel, to my knowledge, and met Ravel when Ravel was traveling in the US...)
Wow, Ethan, you sure stirred up the middlebrow hornet’s nest with this one. What a reader response! A healthy and balanced essay I think, despite the unfortunate headline, which, divorced from context, distorts the reader’s perspective from the top. If I may, I feel compelled to point out (because I was in the middle of it) that Herbie H, in the memoir you quoted, immediately elaborates further on the evolution of a proposed Gershwin project to commemorate his 100th birthday, into Gershwin’s World, which encompasses a wide scope of repertoire, from W.C. Handy to Ravel, and James P. Johnson to—yes—Duke Ellington in an attempt to interpret part of a historical musical milieu. The breadth of Herbie’s supporting cast is testimony to the richness of the idea, which was equally the his creation and that of his producer, the endlessly creative, iconoclastic, and occasionally controversial Robert Sadin. It’s finally worth noting that Sadin was the arranger and conductor on Marcus Roberts’ “expanded” version of RiB on Roberts’ Portraits in Blue album of the following year. (That album also revisits the James P. Johnson connection to GG.)
thanks Chuck. I stand by my title ;-)
Hey if you’re happy, I’m happy! 😎
thanks for your additional comment...when rereading POSSIBILITIES I realized there was more there than I thought the first time around.
Ethan to NYT readers: I’d like you to think a little harder about this oft-heard but little-discussed 100-year-old warhorse.
NYT readers to Ethan: Stop it, you’re hurting my head!
Inadvertently demonstrating once again that “the reception history of ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ is more problematic than the work itself.”
I just read through (and the NYT piece) and having no expertise whatsoever am embarrassed to say we were listening to Gershwin yesterday. There was a PBS piece that stated that not only Gershwin but Levant thought very little of it. Other than it was a request.
You’ve spurred me to listen to those artists he used as inspiration for creating it. Thanks