George Gershwin
| George Gershwin | ||
 Gershwin in 1937 by Carl Van Vechten | ||
| Background information | ||
| Born as: | Jacob Gershwine | |
| Born | Sep 26, 1898 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. | |
| Died | Jul 11, 1937 - age 39 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | |
| Relatives: | Ira Gershwin (brother) , Arthur Gershwin (brother) Frances Gershwin]] (sister) | |
| Occupation: | Pianist, composer | |
| Years active | 1916–1937 | |
George Gershwin (/ˈɡɜːrʃ.wɪn/; born Jacob Gershwine; ✦September 26, 1898 – †July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions "Rhapsody in Blue" (1924) and "An American in Paris" (1928), the songs "Swanee" (1919) and "Fascinating Rhythm" (1924), the jazz standards "Embraceable You" (1928) and "I Got Rhythm" (1930), and the opera "Porgy and Bess" (1935), which included the hit "Summertime".
Gershwin studied piano under Charles Hambitzer and composition with Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Brody. He began his career as a song plugger[Note 1] but soon started composing Broadway theater works with his brother Ira Gershwin and with Buddy DeSylva. He moved to Paris, intending to study with Nadia Boulanger, but she refused him, afraid that rigorous classical study would ruin his jazz-influenced style; Maurice Ravel voiced similar objections when Gershwin inquired about studying with him. He subsequently composed An American in Paris, returned to New York City and wrote "Porgy and Bess" with Ira and DuBose Heyward. Initially a commercial failure, it came to be considered one of the most influential American operas of the twentieth century and an American cultural classic.
Gershwin moved to Hollywood and composed numerous film scores. He died in 1937 of a brain tumor.
His compositions have been adapted for use in film and television, with many becoming jazz standards.
Biography Ancestors Gershwin was of Russian-Jewish ancestry.[2] His grandfather, Jakov Gershowitz, was born in Odesa (Ukraine) and had served for 25 years as a mechanic for the Imperial Russian Army to earn the right of free travel and residence as a Jew, finally retiring near Saint Petersburg. His teenage son Moishe, George's father, worked as a leather cutter for women's shoes. His mother, Roza Bruskina, was born in St. Petersburg, Russia.[3][4] Moishe met Roza in Vilnius where her father worked as a furrier. She and her family moved to New York because of increasing anti-Jewish sentiment in Russia, changing her first name to Rose. Moishe, faced with compulsory military service if he remained in Russia, moved to America as soon as he could afford to. Once in New York, he changed his first name to Morris. Gershowitz lived with a maternal uncle in Brooklyn, working as a foreman in a women's shoe factory. He married Rose on July 21, 1895, and Gershowitz soon Anglicized his name to Gershwine.[5][6][7] Their first child, Ira Gershwin, was born on December 6, 1896, after which the family moved into a second-floor apartment at 242 Snediker Avenue in the East New York neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Early life
George was born on September 26, 1898, in the Snediker Avenue apartment. His birth certificate identifies him as Jacob Gershwine, with the surname pronounced 'Gersh-vin' in the Russian and Yiddish immigrant community. He was named after his grandfather, and, contrary to the American practice, had no middle name. He soon became known as George, and changed the spelling of his surname to 'Gershwin' around the time he became a professional musician; other family members followed suit. After Ira and George, another boy, Arthur Gershwin (1900–1981), and a girl, Frances Gershwin (1906–1999), were born into the family.
The family lived in many different residences, as their father changed dwellings with each new enterprise in which he became involved. They grew up mostly in the Yiddish Theater District. George and Ira frequented the local Yiddish theaters, with George occasionally appearing onstage as an extra.
George lived a boyhood not unusual in New York tenements, which included running around with his friends, roller-skating, and misbehaving in the streets. Until 1908, he cared nothing about music. Then, as a ten-year-old, he was intrigued upon hearing his friend Maxie Rosenzweig's violin recital. The sound, and the way his friend played captivated him. At about the same time, George's parents bought a piano for his older brother Ira. To his parents' surprise, though, and to Ira's relief, it was George who spent more time playing it as he continued to enjoy it.
Although his younger sister Frances was the first in the family to make a living through her musical talents, she married young. She devoted herself to being a mother and housewife, thus precluding spending any serious time on musical endeavors. Having given up her performing career, she settled upon painting as a creative outlet, which had also been a hobby George briefly pursued. Arthur Gershwin followed in the paths of George and Ira, also becoming a composer of songs, musicals, and short various piano teachers for about two years (circa 1911) before finally being introduced to Charles Hambitzer by Jack Miller (circa 1913), the pianist in the Beethoven Symphony Orchestra. Until his death in 1918, Hambitzer remained Gershwin's musical mentor, taught him conventional piano technique, introduced him to music of the European classical tradition, and encouraged him to attend orchestral concerts.
Illness and death
Early in 1937, Gershwin began complaining of blinding headaches and a recurring impression that he smelled burning rubber. On February 11, 1937, he performed his "Piano Concerto in F" in a special concert of his music with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under the direction of French maestro Pierre Monteux. Gershwin, normally a superb pianist in his own compositions, suffered coordination problems and blackouts during the performance. He was at the time working on other Hollywood film projects while living with Ira and his wife Leonore in their rented house in Beverly Hills. Leonore Gershwin began to be disturbed by George's mood swings and seeming inability to eat without spilling food at the dinner table. She suspected mental illness and insisted he be moved out of their house to lyricist Yip Harburg's empty quarters nearby, where he was placed in the care of his valet, Paul Mueller. The headaches and olfactory hallucinations continued.
On the night of July 9, 1937, Gershwin collapsed in Harburg's house, where he had been working on the score of The Goldwyn Follies. He was rushed to Cedars of Lebanon Hospital in Los Angeles and fell into a coma. Only then did his doctors come to believe that he was suffering from a brain tumor. Leonore called George's close friend Emil Mosbacher and explained the dire need to find a neurosurgeon. Mosbacher immediately called pioneering neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing in Boston, who, retired for several years by then, recommended Dr. Walter Dandy, who was on a boat fishing in the Chesapeake Bay with the governor of Maryland. Mosbacher called the White House and had a Coast Guard cutter sent to find the governor's yacht and bring Dandy quickly to shore. Mosbacher then chartered a plane and flew Dandy to Newark Airport, where he was to catch a plane to Los Angeles; by that time, Gershwin's condition was critical, and the need for surgery was immediate. In the early hours of July 11, 1937, doctors at Cedars removed a large brain tumor, believed to have been glioblastoma, but Gershwin died that morning at the age of 38. The fact that he had suddenly collapsed and become comatose after he stood up on July 9 has been interpreted as brain herniation with Duret haemorrhages.
Gershwin's friends and admirers were shocked and devastated. John O'Hara remarked: "George Gershwin died on July 11, 1937, but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to." He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. A memorial concert was held at the Hollywood Bowl on September 8, 1937, at which Otto Klemperer conducted his own orchestration of the second of Gershwin's "Three Preludes".
Musical style and influence
- Wikipedia article: George Gershwin Musical style and influence
Notes
- ↑ A song plugger or song demonstrator was a vocalist or piano player employed in the early 20th century by department stores, music stores, and song publishers to promote and help sell new sheet music, which was how hits were advertised before good-quality recordings were widely available. Music publisher Frank Harding has been credited with innovating the sales method
References
- George Gershwin. (2022, October 6). In Wikipedia.
- Wikipedia article: George Gershwin
External links
- George Gershwin at the Internet Broadway Database
- George Gershwin at the Internet Movie Database
- George and Ira Gershwin Collection at the Library of Congress
- George Gershwin Bio at Jewish-American Hall of Fame
- The Gershwin Initiative at The University of Michigan
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gershwin George Gershwin. (2022, October 6). In Wikipedia.
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Note: George Gershwin was a volunteer at the Hollywood Canteen |
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