George Gershwin: Rhapsody In Blue, Three Preludes, 10 Songs – Pietro Beltrani

George Gershwin embodies, as perhaps few others, the quintessential sound of the American Roaring Twenties. A self-taught musician, he was the one who managed to intertwine the Western classical tradition and idiom with the new genres, styles, and sounds which were emerging in contemporaneous America – first and foremost jazz, but also Latin American suggestions. This Da Vinci Classics CD includes some of Gershwin’s most beloved works. It opens with Rhapsody in Blue, the work which launched its composer and won him everlasting fame; it had been written within the space of very little time, in the first weeks of 1924, upon a commission by Paul Whiteman, and premiered with the composer at the piano in front of an audience where Stravinsky, Stokowsky, Kreisler, and Rachmaninov were seated. Gershwin’s Three Preludes for piano follow: they represent their composer’s piano style at its purest, and allude to the august classical tradition of the keyboard Preludes, from Bach to Chopin. Last but not least, a fascinating selection of ten among Gershwin’s most beloved songs is heard, all of them written on lyrics by his brother Ira, and including iconic titles such as Summertime, I Loves You Porgy, I’ve Got Rhythm, The Man I Love.