Gershwin’s playing (and sense of humour)

The composer Burton Lane describes George Gershwin’s playing:

You could feel the electricity going through the room when he played.  He could transpose into any key with the greatest of ease.  He had total command of what he was doing.  Musical surprises, unusual changes of keys.  He was one of the few composers who had a real sense of humor.

Cited in: Greenberg, Rodney (2008) George Gershwin.  New York: Phaidon Press, p.47.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

Featured Content

Music is a moral law
Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything. – Plato
The inexpressible depth of music
The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from […]
Abstraction XIII
Title: Abstraction XIII Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score     Related products:     – Abstraction XIII (mp3)  
Up close and personal with Glenn Gould
A film has been made of the personal side of Canadian pianist Glenn Gould: During his lifetime Gould was often portrayed less as a real person than a collection of tics — perhaps even more so in the many books and films about him that have been issued since his death. At times he has […]
Comfort in the score of Saul
In 1862 Brahms left Hamburg for Vienna. Brahms was not at all sure that he would remain long in Vienna; but he must have had some premonition that his Hamburg life was nearly over.  He found it hard to say goodbye to his old father and mother; though this time he could leave secure in […]
The London Proms in the 1930s
A recollection of the London Proms in 1936: The behavior of the Promenaders was more genteel in those days … there wasn’t the same degree of shouting as now.  During the famous hornpipe in Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs people tapped with their umbrellas and sticks, rather than stamping.  As the applause went […]
The greatest applause
“The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson “An address delivered before the senior class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838”, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909). Vol. 1 […]
Scores and recordings
Recordings Scores Brass Brass ensemble Trombone Orchestra/Concert band Concert band Piano Piano solo Piano method Strings Cello and piano String ensemble Vocal and choral General Sacred Woodwind Bassoon
The art of pedalling
The one bee in my bonnet is over-pedalling, and I give my students a hard time about that. It’s the lack of being able to play a true legato with the fingers.  People rely on the pedal for that, and the pedal is not there for that.  The pedal is for putting the gloss on.  […]
Paderewski, the dandy
Overheard in a New York street car:— Average Young Man (to neighbour): “Everything they say about Paderewski is true. He’s a perfect genius. Why, he played fourteen pieces and did not once look at the programme. Yet he played straight ahead and never once forgot what piece was to come next. I tell you the […]