Comparison Recordings of Rhapsody
in Blue:
Gershwin, piano; Michael Tilson Thomas
conducting [ADD] CBS/Sony MK 42516
Leonid Hambro, piano; Gershon Kingsley,
synthesiser Avco LP AV-11004-598
Oscar Levant, piano; Eugene Ormandy,
Philadelphia SO [1945 mono ADD] Sony
MPK 47681
In 1905, before the
invention of sirens, my grandfather
William Nickerson played bugle on a
hook and ladder truck for the Seattle,
Washington, City Fire Department when
he couldn’t get paid for playing in
a band. Truth is by that time traditional
Sunday-in-the-park band music was already
something of an anachronism in America,
although Nickerson’s band did distinguish
itself marching in the Bellingham, Washington,
City parade in 1913. His nephew, my
uncle, Dick Arant made good money playing
trumpet for the Dorseys and Paul Whiteman
in their big jazz bands during the ’twenties
and ’thirties. Big band jazz dance music
was the raunchy music of my parents’
generation and George Gershwin, the
"man who made jazz respectable,"
was its high priest. Ironically, he
was credited with being "...the
link between the jazz camp and the intellectuals..."
when today it is white-haired intellectuals
who are the "jazz
camp," who keep the corpse of jazz
barely alive with corporate and government
subsidies in an age much more excited
by world music and rap. But in the mid-20th
century so much did big band jazz come
to represent "America" that
it was only necessary for Hindemith
to introduce a few notes of jazz trumpet
into his 1943 Symphonic Metamorphosis
to symbolise the victory of the American
army (among others, of course) over
the Nazis.
The story told me by
a friend of a friend’s mother is that
she met Gershwin at a party in Hollywood.
They got to talking, and Gershwin reportedly
said, "I’ve written a lot of really
trashy music, but I’ve made a lot of
money, and now I’m going to retire and
write something really good." Six
months later he was, tragically for
all of us, dead of brain cancer at the
age of 39.
Gershwin’s instrumental
masterpiece is the brief Rhapsody
in Blue, written first for solo
piano (not by Gershwin, who reportedly
could neither read nor write music notation)
then orchestrated in several versions
by its commissioner, band leader Paul
Whiteman. The work is a brief and effective
encyclopaedic showcase for the rhythmic
and instrumental trademarks of the "jazz"
style. Fiedler’s performance of the
arrangement for symphony orchestra is
one of the most effective. Pianist Wild
played the work at least fifty times
with Whiteman’s band and by the time
of this 1959 recording his fingers had
lost none of their firm, agile grasp
of the music. Gershwin himself recorded
the solo piano version on a piano roll,
and therein hangs the tale of the first
of the referenced alternative recordings
above. By individually blocking out
those notes on the piano roll that represented
the accompaniment, Gershwin was able
forty years after his death to be made
to "play" the piano solo part
in the Michael Tilson Thomas recording
of what is at least the fastest and
probably the most effective modern sound
recording of the jazz band version,
a four channel master which should appear
on disk some day as a surround sound
SACD.
By means of intensive
lobbying in Congress, the Gershwin copyright
owners have been able to get the American
copyrights on Gershwin’s music, which
would normally all have expired before
1993, extended to 2013. Hopefully after
2013 (2009 in Europe) this recording
can be sold again; in the meantime,
drop by my house anytime and I’ll be
happy to play the AVCO recording for
you.
The Concerto in
F, considered to be too classical
by most of Gershwin’s pop music contemporaries
today sounds less adventuresome than
the Ravel Concerto in g written
five years later. It’s a fine classically
structured work and is not played nearly
often enough. The Levant/Ormandy recordings
having been popular and in print continuously
for over sixty years still have virtues
to recommend them to serious collectors.
Levant appears in person along with
Gene Kelly in the 1953 MGM film "American
in Paris" which features the full
music to an exotic cinematic fantasy
of the ballet as the finale.
Arthur Fiedler (1894-1979)
"the best selling conductor in
history" began as a violinist in
the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1915.
He founded first the Boston Sinfonietta,
and later organised concerts which became
the Boston "Pops" summer season
which he conducted for fifty years.
Fiedler was in every way a qualified
and conscientious musician and never
lowered his musical standards for cheap
effect. Many if not most of his recordings
stand beside, sometimes slightly ahead
of, those by conductors of more serious
reputation. He is reported to be the
only conductor to have made recordings
in all known formats — his first recordings
were on wax cylinders, and just before
his death he recorded the orchestra
in digital sound.
To complete the catalogue
of my personal involvement in this music,
my high school classmate Max Hobart
was playing in the second violins in
this recording.
As in all these recent
RCA/BMG SACDs of classic tapes, the
sound is simply stupendous, wide range,
low distortion, with all the excitement
of being there. Most of these qualities
are clearly audible even in the CD tracks
of the hybrid disk. Even if you own
a previous CD issue of this music, you
will enjoy noticeably clearer sound
on your CD player with the promise of
even better sound when you upgrade to
an SACD player.
In case you can’t figure
out how to get the program booklet out
of the jewelcase without tearing it
to pieces, I will be delighted to share
the secret with you. For full instructions,
send one US dollar (cash only; no checks,
please) and a self addressed stamped
envelope to PO Box 124, Notus, ID 83656
USA.
Paul Shoemaker
Recorded 18 May 1961 
BMG-RCA
828766 1393-2 [79.22] 
