Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” at 100
canopic jug writes:
Multiple sites have covered the 100th anniversary of the premier of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.
George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was premiered one hundred years ago today, on the snowy afternoon of February 12, 1924, at Aeolian Hall on Manhattan's West 43rd Street.
The 25-year-old composer was at the piano, joined by the dance band of Paul Whiteman, the noted bandleader who commissioned the work. It was presented near the end of a marathon concert, organized and promoted by Whiteman, entitled, An Experiment in Modern Music. Purportedly in attendance were such musical luminaries as Sergei Rachmaninov, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Leopold Stokowski, Ernest Bloch, Igor Stravinsky, Walter Damrosch, Victor Herbert, and John Philip Sousa. Whiteman later recalled that
it was a strange audience out front. Vaudevillians, concert managers came to have a look at the novelty, Tin Pan Alleyites, composers, symphony and opera stars, flappers, cake-eaters, all mixed up higgledy-piggledy.
Also at,
- US Library of Congress : Gershwin's "Rhapsody" at 100; Still Capturing the American Character
- US Library of Congress : "Rhapsody in Blue" at 100
- NPR : 'Rhapsody in Blue': After a century, Gershwin's musical melting pot still resonates
- University of Michigan : Category Archives: Rhapsody in Blue
- The New European : Rhapsody in Blue at 100: The European roots of an American anthem
- LPM : As "Rhapsody in Blue" turns 100, it reminds us to experiment boldly
and many others.
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