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George Gershwin: Rhapsody In Blue
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Rhapsody In Blue - Piano Duet By George Gershwin (1898-1937), arranged by Henry Levine. Piano duet book for one piano four-hands (primo and secundo parts on opposing pages). 49 pages. Published by Alfred Publishing.
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Rhapsody in Blue was the piece George composed. Although the orchestrations have been attributed to Paul Whiteman's arranger, Ferde Grofé, there is no dispute that George composed the original piece, which was originally scored for piano and jazz band. The opening of the composition features a clarinet solo, which trills at the beginning and scales up into a sliding reach through the atmosphere. Clearly a piece which should be played with emotion, indicative of the blues feel, Rhapsody is still one of the favorite pieces played in the United States and worldwide by orchestras and ensembles.
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MUCH has been written about George Gershwin; but almost nothing about his music. Version after version of his life appears, and in each he is seen merely as a prototype of the American success story. In the recently released Warner Brothers' motion picture, "Rhapsody in Blue," Gershwin's glittering rise to fame and fortune found its destined apotheosis in a million-and-a-half-dollar Hollywood production. Yet such was the character of the composer's life that, with the addition of two fictitious love affairs, it emerges on the screen relatively true to its actual course. The only surprise is that it took Hollywood eight years to bring to the screen a biography which had existed as a liv- ing script for almost two decades.
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Next from the "serious" Gershwin came An American in Paris (1928), a delightful musical souvenir of a European trip. Early in the days of the LP, its breezy tone and length marked it as a natural flip-side companion to the Rhapsody in Blue, and it has been so coupled ever since. Each of the above recommendations for the Bernstein, Fiedler and Slatkin readings of the Rhapsody apply as well to their associated performances of An American in Paris.
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Rhapsody In Blue