(program)
Victrola America Recording // George Gershwin (1898—1937) // An American in Paris
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Nathaniel Shilkret. Soloist: George Gershwin
I had gone to concerts and listened not only with my ears, but with my nerves, my mind, my heart. I had listened so earnestly that I became saturated with the music. Then I went home and listened in memory. “” george gershwin, George Gershwin: His Life and Work
My purpose here is 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...The opening gay section...is followed by a rich “blues” with a strong rhythmic undercurrent. Our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café, and having a few drinks, has suddenly succumbed to a spasm of homesickness. “” george gershwin, George Gershwin: His Life and Work
had the opportunity to attend the TSO’s performance of gershwin’s An American in Paris about a month ago, my first time hearing the piece live. until then, all that came to mind in relation to gershwin was his tall and glistening figure, dark-suited for some jazzy occasion beneath a cap of jet-black hair——and, vaguely, as the author of breathlessly paced ragtime-cum-classical numbers on piano. the TSO performance was my first prolonged encounter with the energetically prolific composer, charging this particular composition with its twinkling and restless energy via the eclectic combination of frenzied xylophones, triangle, woodblocks, soprano saxophone, taxi horns and so on. structurally the work is symphonic tone poem, the subject of which is the aforementioned homesickness, and it was for its composer a watershed moment to what might otherwise have been a sprawling career that would’ve lasted the better part of the century.
The end was sudden and shocking. Suffering from dizzy spells, he suddenly lost consciousness. An emergency operation to remove a brain tumour was unsuccessful, and he died at the age of thirty-eight, at the height of his powers. “” robert philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Guide to Orchestral Music
already a staple for Broadway musicals, the span of ten years between An American in Paris and his death procured works for orchestra (Cuban Overture, Shall We Dance), solo-piano (George Gershwin’s Song-book) and opera (Porgy and Bess). it seems he was also a fellow lover of blue timbres (Rhapsody in Blue, Blue Monday).
Gershwin’s unique appeal was his ability to inhabit the classical and popular fields with equal ease. There were other classically trained emigrés who had brought the skills of the classical composers to Broadway, but Gershwin had aspirations in the opposite direction. “” robert philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Guide to Orchestral Music
it’s the composer himself on the celesta for this Victrolla recording——the same recording label referred to in alannah myles’s ‘Black Velvet’: Mississippi in the middle of a dry spell, Jimmy Rodgers on the Victrola up high’——a compilation which also features selections from his works for Broadway as well as his ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. the latter of which i’d like to return to in the future, for obvious reasons.
I love [the Hudson] river, and I thought how often I had been homesick for a sight of it, and then the idea struck me - an American in Paris, homesickness, the blues. So there you are. “” george gershwin, George Gershwin: His Life and Work
intermittent bouts of depression, instigated by a cadential phrase on english horn, are exchanged with a bustling parisian street scene, a cacophonous ferris wheel of sounds. the loosely structured work repeats the same patterns throughout: often it’s the brass fanfare, right at the height of its build-up, that suddenly cuts to a blues melody, a languorous theme on trumpet echoed by low strings and discussed by various members of the brass section. this tone poem and ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ are set back-to-back on the recording, a perfect pairing i think, as homesickness and the colour blue are for me one and the same thing. what colour comes to your mind when, for example, you hear tsegue-maryam guebrou’s ‘Homesickness’? or, in musical terms, how would you describe it’s timbre? cold? a distance and a longing? a sentiment that is at once retreating and inviting?——it’s this duality, on a louder more symphonic scale, that i hear in An American in Paris.
it appears the composer believed in the unlikely compatibility of homesickness and a longing for travel, his american visitor seems to be equidistant from home and abroad. and in characteristically indefatigable american optimism, as philip observes below, belief in this compatibility runs right through to the end:
A rapid climax leads to one last burst of the blues tune, as if to say that is is possible to be nostalgic and happily adventurous at the same time. And on this optimistic note, almost like the overture to a show, the piece comes to an end. “” robert philip, The Classical Music Lover’s Guide to Orchestral Music
(song of the week: Amidinine —— Bombino)
Ethno-racial music in general provides a great deal of courage to go on living in the present. “” paul gilroy
this past semester i took a course in world music——partly in an effort to spot the cognitive bench press involved in a calculus course——a course named ‘Music of the World’s People’ in order to avoid the scourge of the ‘world music’ label. walking away from the final exam i chuckled at the thought that all i seemed to obtain from the course were two good songs: a korean folk song called ‘Arirang’, and beethoven’s ‘Highland Harry’ from his Twelve Scottish Songs (time and money well spent, a good song can last a lifetime). but the course also provided a toolbox for discussing and understanding the plight of world music artists, from the invention of the genre in a london cafe in the sixties by music label execs to the new-found independence that some of these artists achieved on the world stage. one of the less cringeworthy success-stories of a musician from a third world country finding an international audience with a little help from western labels and musicians is that of Bombino. the group hails from niger, though not quite so as they are part of a nomadic tribe——the tuareg people——displaced variously by geopolitical conflict and effects of climate change. i’ve discussed their music in several instances on this blog, had another chance to see them this past march and i’m obsessed with the energy of their concerts. so when the opportunity came to write a short survey essay about similarities across different musical traditions, i lept at the chance to learn more about tuareg music by surfing the fascinating field research conducted by an Indiana University professor (susan rasmussen), and taking a focus on how Feminism is advanced or stifled in each case. if you’re curious as to what my writing looks like if i adhered to obvious rules of syntax and grammar, i invite you to read the essay here;
above is an acoustic rendition of the first song on Bombino’s 2013 album, though i prefer the studio version, it’s much more what you’d find at their concerts. their style is known as tichoumaren (which translates literally to ‘guitar music’ in tamasheq, the language of the tuareg) and is also referred to as ‘desert blues’. it sounds nothing like the aforementioned blues of the american south, but the sentiment is the same: a generally diffused sense of homesickness, and of longingness (their 2013 album is nomad Nomad). one of the those tools i took away from the course is to understand music as a dicent sign, that is a sign that is affected by the entity it is indicating. a wind vane, for example, is a dicent sign inasmuch as it is affected by the wind and likewise indicates the direction of the wind. in the same sense does music indicate the inclinations of the traditions of the culture from which it emerged, and simultaneously indicates the current trajectory of said culture. in that sense do i place music at equidistance between tradition and innovation, i think that is the unique place of music, and art in general, that it belongs neither to the past nor the future, a fragile dialogue between the two.
‘hommes bleus’ is another nickname of the tuareg, a name earned by the blue dye of the turbans they wear, which is known to bleed onto their skin after prolonged wear. and isn’t that a beautiful image for the mind’s eye, black and blue bodies against the desert sand? ‘the blue people of the desert’ says maggie nelson in her Bluets. ‘In Moonlight, Black Boys Look Blue’ the title of the play that was eventually made into the film Moonlight (2014).
happy new year to you, and thank you oh so much for stopping by here :)