Carinthian Summer 2024
ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, conductor and piano: Wayne Marshall. George Gershwin: An American in Paris and Rhapsody in Blue, plus film music by John Williams (recorded on 4 August at Congress Halle Villach as part of Carinthian Summer 2024)
August 13, 2024, 7:30 PM
George Gershwin originally wanted to call his Rhapsody in Blue “American Rhapsody,” but his brother Ira, who also wrote many of George’s lyrics, suggested the name with which the extraordinary piano concerto began its triumphant march around the world of music. “Blue notes” are a fundamental feature of jazz, showing a free and uncomplicated style of melody. Although the piece speaks clearly in the language of jazz, George Gershwin still claims to be a “classical” composer who merges old-world musical traditions with African-American blues into a single whole. At the premiere in 1924, Gershwin himself sat at the piano and made a great success of “Rhapsody in Blue.” Wayne Marshall and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra ORF demonstrated that it has lost none of its charm even two hundred years after the premiere at this year’s Carinthian Summer, where Gershwin’s “An American in Paris” and John Williams’ film music were also on the program.
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