Research Paper On George Gershwin

Brittany Moak
Mr. Elloit
Music Appreciation Spring Semester 2017
April 13, 2017
George Gershwin
According to www.biography.com, George Gershwin was one of the most admirable American music composers of the twentieth century, he is known for popular stage and screen numbers as well as classical compositions. He was born September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York. George dropped out of school and began playing the piano instrument professsionally only at 15 years old. Within a couple years, he was one of the most sought after musicians in America. He is a composer of jazz, opera, and popular songs for screen and stage, many of his works are now respectable. Gershwin died following his brain surgery on July 11, 1937, at 38 years old.
George Gershwin
was actually born Jacob Gershowitz. He is the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, he began his foray into music at 11 years old when his family bought a handy down piano for George’s brothe, Ira. George took to it like it was a natural talent. He eventually sought after teachers who could increase his abilities. He soon began practicing with the respectable piano teacher Charles Hambitzer. Charles was so impressed that he wrote a letter to his sister writing, “I have a new pupil who will make his mark if anybody will. The boy is a genius.”
Throughout his 23-year long career, Gershwin continually seeked to expand the expansion of his influences, studying under incredible disparate selection of teachers, which includes Henry Cowell, Wallingford Riegger, Edward Kilenyi, and Joseph Schillinger.
After dropping out at 15 years old, George played at several New York nightclubs and began his stint as a “song plugger” in New York’s Tin Pan Alley. After only 3 years of playing out tunes on the piano for his thrilling customers, he had completely transformed into a highly dexterous and skilled composer. To earn some extra cash, he worked as a rehearsal piano player for the Broadway singers. In 1916, George composed his first song, “When You Want ‘Em, You Can’t Get ‘Em; When You Have ‘Em, You Don’t Want
‘Em.”
According to www.
pbs.org, rom 1920 to 1924, Gershwin composed for a yearly production put on by George White. After a show titled “Blue Monday,” the bandleader in the pit, Paul Whiteman, he asked Gershwin to create a jazz number that would heighten the genre’s respectability. Legend has it that George forgot about the request until he read the newspaper article stating the fact that Whiteman’s latest performance would feature a Gershwin composition. Writing at a manic pace in order to meet the stopping point, George composed what might be considered his best-known work, “Rhapsody in Blue.”
During that time, and in years following, Gershwin wrote a number of songs for screen and stage that quickly became standards, including “Oh, Lady Be Good!” “Someone to Watch Over Me”, “Strike Up the Band,” “Embraceable You,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me.” His lyric writer for almost all of these tunes was his brother, Ira, who wrote lyrics that were witty and inventive wordplay received nearly as much acclaim as George’s compositions. In the 1920s, Gershwin spent a lot of time in Paris, which inspired his jazz-influenced orchestral composition An American
Paris.
Which was composed in 1928, inspired the 1951 Oscar-winning movie musical by the same name, which starred Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron, and directed by Vincente Minnelli. A Broadway musical based on a film that opened in 2014. In 1935, ten years after composing his best-known work, he debuted his most ambitious composition, “Porgy and Bess.” The work, which was based on the novel “Porgy” by Dubose Heyward, drew from both classical and popular influences. Gershwin called it his “folk opera,” and it is considered to not only be George’s most complex and best-known works , but also among the most important American musical compositions of the twentieth century.
According to www.allmusic.com, by the '30s, the Gershwin’s had turned to political topics and satire in response to the onset of the Depression, and their Of Thee I Sing became the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize. In the mid '30s, Gershwin ambitiously worked to meld his show music and classical leanings in the creation of the folk opera Porgy and Bess, with lyrics by Ira and Dubose Heyward. The Gershwin’s had moved to Hollywood and were engaged in several movie projects at the time of George Gershwin's death. In the beginning of 1937, Gershwin began to experience symptoms such as severe headaches and smelling strange smells. Doctors eventually discovered that he had developed a malignant brain tumor. On July 11, 1937, Gershwin died during surgery to remove the tumor, when he was only 38.

Sources
George Gershwin. (2017). The Biography.com website. Retrieved 11:53, April 13, 2017, from http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643 George Gershwin. (2017). The Allmusic.com website. Retrieved 12:01, April 13, 2017, from http://www.allmusic.com/artist/george-gershwin-mn0000197918/biography George Gershwin. (2006). The Pbs.org website. Retrieved 12:04, April 13, 2017, from http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/george-gershwin-about-the-composer/65/