For those unaware, George Gershwin was one of the most renowned contributors to the Great American Songbook, writing dozens of hits for Broadway shows and Hollywood movies through the ’20s and ’30s through to his untimely death in 1937 aged just 38, with many of his compositions becoming ubiquitous jazz standards.

However, he became equally famous as a hugely original composer of longer works, blending classical with jazz forms and exploring wider musical avenues, most notably with his seminal works Rhapsody in Blue and An American In Paris.

This 2CD collection brings together recordings of those two works, with Rhapsody in Blue performed by Oscar Levant With The Philadelphia Symphony Orch. conducted by Eugene Ormandy from 1945, and one of the original recordings of An American In Paris by The Victor Symphony Orchestra in 1929, with Gershwin himself on celeste.

Along with those are recordings of the three movements of his Piano Concerto In F Major, the Second Rhapsody for Piano & Orchestra, known as Rhapsody In Rivets, and The Cuban Overture, plus his Three Preludes for Piano and Variations on I Got Rhythm.

Despite his abbreviated life, George Gershwin (1898–1937) — born Jacob Bruskin Gershowitz in 1898, in Brooklyn — crafted an epochal body of work, encompassing not only a group of compositions but also a stylistic imprint as influential as that of any other American composer.

As noted, he composed perhaps the country’s most iconic orchestral work, Rhapsody in Blue (1924), as well as the signature American opera, Porgy and Bess (1935); and he wrote the music to songs that are as indelible as any written in the era of Tin Pan Alley: “Summertime” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (from Porgy and Bess), “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Embraceable You,” “The Man I Love,” “Love Walked In,” “Strike Up the Band,” “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off,” “S’Wonderful,” “How Long Has This Been Going On?” and on and on, many penned for hit shows on Broadway.

Then there is his oft-performed orchestral tone poem An American in Paris and his Piano Concerto in F, which Gershwin premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1925 with himself as soloist. He was appreciated by European classical composers for his individuality and freshness. Maurice Ravel and Igor Stravinsky are on record as being inspired by Gershwin, and no less than Arnold Schoenberg praised the American for his unique way with rhythm, melody and harmony: “Gershwin is an artist and a composer — he expressed musical ideas, and they were new, as is the way he expressed them.” In his own way, Gershwin was a modernist, saying: “True music must reflect the thought and aspirations of the people and time. My people are Americans. My time is today.”

After the composer’s death from a brain tumor in 1937, The New York Times obituary stated: “Mr. Gershwin was a child of the Twenties, the Age of Jazz. In the fast two-step time after the war, he was to music what F. Scott Fitzgerald was to prose.”

Yet, however much he captured his age, Gershwin’s music has lived on, beguiling each successive generation. Major concert pianists from Oscar Levant, Leonard Bernstein and Earl Wild to André Previn, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Garrick Ohlsson have performed and recorded Rhapsody in Blue and the Concerto in F. Such jazz pianists as Marcus Roberts and Stefano Bollani have ventured the Gershwin works on record, too.

Although Gershwin died before he could make high-fidelity recordings, his crisp, vivacious manner at the piano can be experienced through the player-piano rolls he made, many of which — including a complete, solo Rhapsody in Blue – were restored and reissued by Nonesuch on hit albums in the mid–’90s. Acknowledging his prime inspiration, Gershwin penned a 1926 essay titled “Jazz Is the Voice of the American Soul.”

Whether in cabarets or jazz clubs, Gershwin’s songs are sung as often as those by Schubert or The Beatles; Porgy and Bess was revived on Broadway with star Audra McDonald in 2012, for nearly 300 performances; and the composer’s concert works are heard around the world, still representing an American ideal.

George Gershwin: Concert And Orchestral Works is a collection which marvelously showcases another side to Gershwin’s unique talents as a composer, which made him such an influential and admired figure.

Disc One:
1. Oscar Levant With Philadelphia Symphony Orch. cond by Eugene Ormandy - Rhapsody In Blue
2. Oscar Levant With New York Philharmonic Orch. cond. By Andre Kostelanetz - Piano Concerto In F - I. Allegro
3. Oscar Levant With New York Philharmonic Orch. cond. By Andre Kostelanetz - Piano Concerto In F - II Andante con moto
4. Oscar Levant With New York Philharmonic Orch. cond. By Andre Kostelanetz - Piano Concerto In F - III Allegro agitato
5. Oscar Levant With Morton Gould & His Orchestra - Variations on I Got Rhythm

Disc 2:
1. Oscar Levant With Morton Gould & His Orchestra - Second Rhapsody for piano & orchestra Rhapsody In Rivets
2. Oscar Levant - 3 Preludes No. 1 Allegro ben ritmato e deciso
3. Oscar Levant - 3 Preludes: No. 2, Andante con moto e poco rubato
4. Oscar Levant - 3 Preludes: No. 3, Allegro ben ritmato e deciso
5. Arthur Fiedler Boston Pops Orchestra - Cuban Overture
6. Nathaniel Silkret & The Victor Symph Orch. - George Gershwin on celeste - An American In Paris

Official Purchase Link

www.gershwin.com