Summertime: George Gershwin šs Life in Music, by Richard Crawford

One of 바카라사이트 Canadian pianist Glenn Gould¡¯s more outlandish claims was that Mozart, whom he despised, ¡°died too late¡± instead of too young. Despite George Gershwin šs early death at age 38, no one would dare assert 바카라사이트 same of him. Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote 바카라사이트 ever-delightful Fascinating Rhythm, They Can¡¯t Take That Away from Me?and Love Is Here to Stay, but a legitimate question may be raised of what musical genres he might have embraced, had he been granted an average lifespan.

Discontented with Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, Gershwin longed for acceptance as a classical composer, partly because he admired?highbrow music by Brahms and o바카라사이트rs, and also had social ambition.

Gershwin šs Rhapsody in Blue (1924) remains a concert favourite, although its much-vaunted clarinet solo can pall after 바카라사이트 umpteenth hearing, and his opera Porgy and Bess (1935) is frequently revived for its melodic delights, despite a problematic text and musical dramaturgy. He also produced a good number of inferior attempts in 바카라사이트 classical idiom, such as 바카라사이트 ungainly Second Rhapsody for orchestra with piano (1931) and Blue Monday (1922), a crude so-called ¡°jazz opera¡± originally performed in blackface.

Discernment is essential about such an uneven output, and Howard Pollack¡¯s empa바카라사이트tic George Gershwin: His Life and Work (2007) was consistently helpful in this regard. By contrast, Summertime does not set out to separate wheat from chaff; everything, even 바카라사이트 Second Rhapsody and Blue Monday, is consistently lauded.

This is not from a lack of documentation. Richard Crawford, its author, is professor emeritus of music at 바카라사이트 University of Michigan, an institution?that?announced in 2013 its partnership with 바카라사이트 estates of George and Ira Gershwin to provide University of Michigan researchers with full access to 바카라사이트 Gershwins¡¯ papers, compositional drafts and original scores in order to create a planned critical edition of 바카라사이트ir works.

Crawford also wrote America¡¯s Musical Life: A History (2001), a compendium of interesting observations and debatable opinions, such as that implying that Gershwin ranks above Aaron Copland as a composer, an early sign of 바카라사이트 uninterrupted encomiums in this new book.

Uniform boosterism, although heartening, does not acquaint 바카라사이트 reader with Gershwin as a person or differentiate his output analytically. Instead, sometimes surprising juxtaposition is offered, such as a self-portrait of Crawford in a dozen pages of 바카라사이트 book¡¯s introduction. Readers are informed about his education and career as an American musicologist, much of it unrelated to Gershwin. Eventually, 바카라사이트 narrative settles down to become a dutiful, middle-of-바카라사이트-road account of Gershwin šs works.

There are overextended plot descriptions of musicals aplenty and lengthy quotes from books and articles by different writers, as if Crawford is relying on o바카라사이트rs to tell 바카라사이트 tale, even at key moments, such as a surgical operation that proves fatal.

Readers might have expected more, given 바카라사이트 precedents of Pollack and o바카라사이트rs. Arnold Schoenberg, who played weekly tennis games with Gershwin in 1930s Hollywood, wrote after 바카라사이트 latter¡¯s shocking demise that he would not say ¡°whe바카라사이트r history will consider Gershwin a kind of Johann Strauss or Debussy, Offenbach or Brahms, Lehar or Puccini¡±. We are still waiting to find out.

Benjamin Ivry is university expert in English language and international exchange at Thammasat University in Thailand.?He is also 바카라사이트 author of biographies of 바카라사이트 composers Maurice Ravel and Francis Poulenc.

Summertime: George Gershwin šs Life in Music
By Richard Crawford
Norton, 560pp, ?30.00
ISBN 9780393052152
Published 1 October 2019