As the perfect mood setter and to help the reader more fully experience the spirit in which this article is presented, please click on the following title, sit back, listen & enjoy.
And now...
"Home Blues"
Singer Todd Duncan (the original "Porgy" in Gershwin's Porgy and Bess) once recounted a conversation he had with his dear friend George Gershwin, in which George lamented to Todd his deep longing to return home to New York City and resume composing symphonic works--works such as what Gershwin had in the past, thrilled, electrified and moved audiences to tears with... the Rhapsody In Blue, An American In Paris, Second Rhapsody, Concerto in F, Cuban Overture and Porgy and Bess. Focusing solely on these types of works now, was what George felt he wanted to do more than anything--anything other than painting as George was also a skilled painter who loved this art form. To the deep regret of the music world, family, friends and fans around the world, George Gershwin never got that chance to return to his beloved City. When he made this statement to Todd Duncan, George was working in Hollywood on what would turn out to be his last film (The Goldwyn Follies-released 1938). He was trying to earn enough money to sponsor himself in what he considered then to be, the creation more serious musical works. George's brilliant life and career ended on July 11th 1937 in Hollywood California. He was only 38-years old.
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was the quintessential New Yorker of his times. He loved New York City. And with a unique ability to create incredibly steely and memorable melodies, with song after song, Gershwin in essence painted an expansive musical portrait of the city that he loved...the place he called home, New York.
Few other composers have been able to capture in music, the energy, mood, character...even nuances of New York City as George Gershwin has. Thus, the Gershwin name has really come to be synonymous with NYC when you think of music. Gershwin seems to have been born at just the right time and in just the right place. A dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, he was constantly drawing inspiration and energy from NYC and didn't like being away from the city for long stretches of time. George would find himself being stricken pretty badly with homesickness while in foreign places--something I can completely identify with.
33 Riverside Drive
(The West Side address where George and his brother Ira shared a penthouse apartment)
The idea of home can mean very different things to different people. Whatever home personally means to you, whether it is being in a certain place or being with a very special person, whether home is a different time to you, or a personal comfort zone, whether you define home as being safe from those who hurt you, or as having wealth or power, being asleep or awake, being with G-d in His dwelling place, being miles away from your pain-in-the-neck mother-in-law, et cetera, et cetera, not being there in that secure place you feel is home, can create a deep longing and put one on a path of continuous emotional pursuit. For some, this becomes a life-long quest.
In 1928 George Gershwin composed what was to become, one of his most well-known and widely performed works, a symphonic tone poem entitled "An American In Paris". George's purpose was to "portray the impressions of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city, listens to the various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere." George had visited Paris two years before, in 1926, and, based on his own tour of the city, absorbing sights and sounds, had composed a piece entitled "Very Parisienne". He then presented this earliest musical fragment of An American In Paris as a gift to his Paris hosts, Robert and Mabel Schirmer. (Any music students out there? If yes, then you probably have at least one Schirmer practice exercise book amongst your volumes. Maybe Hanon? Well this is the same Schirmer music publishing family that George visited, Robert Schirmer.) Building upon this early fragmented piece, George was to later fashion his complete symphonic tone poem.
As our American visitor in Paris (presumably, George) begins his stroll through the city, he starts out with quick-stepped, upbeat gaiety. This is heard in the early repeating theme during part I of George's tone poem. (An interesting thing to note about the first part of An American In Paris, is that while in Paris, George searched for and carefully selected authentic taxi horns to use as part of his orchestration. Listen to the very beginning of this symphonic tone poem and you will hear these horns.)
The beginning theme of An American In Paris is so lighthearted and effervescent, it seems as if the visitor is skipping rather than walking along. Anyone who is familiar with Gershwin's life will immediately recognize how this theme characterizes the optimism and gaiety of the young composer himself. It's easy to envision George on this walking tour of the streets of Paris.
A theme from George Gershwin orchestral composition, An American in Paris
Soon he passes a cathedral, slows down at this point, in what we then hear as a reverent-like theme. George Gershwin's approach to a religious or spiritual theme here, was with a gentle, almost child-like serenity. I have long felt that the "Cathedral Theme" in An American In Paris is the most curious and remarkably insightful theme of this tone poem. For if you listen carefully, you can hear harmonic progressions in this cathedral theme very similar to those that would show up years later in Gershwin's grand opera Porgy and Bess (1935).
Midway through An American In Paris we hear Gershwin's famous blues theme. Here, this highly expressive theme adds lush, colorful richness to the story-like structure of An American In Paris: He laments. The American visitor is suddenly overcome with pangs of loneliness. He hears a distant song...a siren 'blue' song that calls him back...back across the seas to his home.
An American In Paris would not be the first work Gershwin was inspired to compose by the sights and sounds around him. Regarding his Rhapsody In Blue, George had been similarly inspired. He conceived of the idea for the rhapsody from beginning to end during a train ride to Boston. He said of it...
"with its steely rhythms, its rattlety-bang . . . I suddenly heard - and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the rhapsody from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America - of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our blues, our metropolitan madness."--George Gershwin
Gershwin's "Home Blues" theme in An American In Paris has been the most popularized and widely performed theme of this work. The 1951 MGM Musical film An American In Paris, starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron with Oscar Levant and Georges Guetary, was set in Paris and featured a 16-minute jazz ballet with Kelly and Caron, which included a romantic sequence for the "Home Blues" theme.
An American In Paris MGM 1951 Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron
In 1929 Ira Gershwin, in collaboration with Gus Kahn, penned lyrics for the "Home Blues" theme of An American In Paris. The Gershwin brothers were providing songs this time for the 1929 Ziegfield musical "Show Girl". Show Girl ran at the Ziegfield Theater for 111 performance, starred Ruby Keeler, Jimmy Durante and Eddie Foy Jr., and included such Gershwin songs as "Liza", "Lolita" (My Love), "So Are You". The "Home Blues" song under that title, was recorded and released in 2003 as a ballad performed by singer/songwriter Michael Feinstein and can be sampled:
"Home Blues" (performed by Michael Feinstein)
Inspired by the theme of the "Home Blues" (the idea of one longing for home), I decided to try my own hand at writing a verse for the popular refrain of the "Home Blues" song of 1929. I decided to match each line I write, to Ira Gershwin's own original lyrics for the verse for this song exactly--syllable for syllable. What I came up with is an original lyric verse which can be sung to the music of the verse of "Home Blues". And what I also tried to do is to make my own original lyrics for the verse of this old Gershwin song more relevant for today with a universal meaning. You can see my original verse for "Home Blues" below, and be the judge to if I succeeded. Remember as you read it that these lyrics I wrote are to the verse of "Home Blues", not the refrain. As I don't have copyright license to reproduce the "Home Blues" song lyrics here, I can suggest if you want to hear the entire song, to use the link I posted above featuring Michael Feinstein in a recording of it.
"VERSE"
By SDG DiamondHead
(as inspired by the original Ira Gershwin song lyrics for "Home Blues" 1929)
There's an old familiar saying
That I've come to know--
A simple proclamation to--
Which a debt I owe.
'Says that, "Home is where the heart is".
This I can't deny.
For there's a place that I've been longing to see--
For now my heart's a-yearning, saying to me--
"Home you'll go,
"Home you'll go,
Wanderin' days are through."
"You should know,
There's a better place for you."
There's a better place for you."
Thank you so much for stopping by and until next time, hope you are happy and *home*
and...
May happiness chase you--
May it outrace you--
Then turn, and embrace you.
--diamondhead
--diamondhead
An Addition for July 5th-- Gershwin's Concerto in F-(an expressive performance)
While browsing YouTube for Gershwin, I came across this interesting performance of the first movement Gershwin's Concerto in F performed by Chris Reeves (at the piano), with the Orchestra of the Pines under the direction of Gene Moon. This was a college performance done at Stephen F. Austin State University.
What I like about this performance of Gershwin's Concerto is the expression the pianist Chris Reeves brings to this performance. Moreover, the orchestra he performs with maintains this same expressiveness throughout the work. I think Reeves did a very good job in bringing real emotion to, and capturing essence of Gershwin in this performance. There are a few clunkers here and there in this first movement, and the pianist seems to lose some steam at the end, but what he lacked in technique I believe he made up for in his musical interpretation. This is one of the more expressive performances of any movement of the the Concerto in F that I've heard. Surprising too that it was done at a University.
Gershwin was on the receiving end of much criticism over his structure of his Concerto. Some people in the classical music field didn't think at the time, that Gershwin could produce a "genuine" long classical work. I disagree. Structurally, Gershwin's Concerto is worked differently than the works of most other classical composers, but so what? That doesn't mean that his work is without merit. The Concerto in F has been called "dull" by some critics. Again I strongly disagree. I think the Concerto is anything but dull. All of Gershwin's works whether they were songs or long classical works or opera, were very, very melodic and thematic. Those were Gershwin's strongest points. Yes, there were nuances of jazz even in his longer classical works. But that was Gershwin for you. Anyway, who wrote it in stone that a long classical orchestral work has to play like Greek tragedy? You can listen and be the judge to whether you like it or not, because liking it, as they say, is the bottom line in the business. Liking it means buying it. Whatever those stuffed shirt poop-a-doops may even be saying today about George Gershwin's "lack of" ability to compose longer classical works, the Gershwin estate is nevertheless still laughing all the way to the bank.
"They all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was..."....yadda-yadda-yadda...
Chris Reeves in a performance of Gershwin's Concerto in F with the Orchestra of the Pines under the baton of Gene Moon.
(further reading on Gershwin: http://www.classical.net/music/comp.lst/works/gershwin/concerto.php )
