George Gershwin (1898–1937)
The American composer who brought together jazz, Broadway song and classical music, author of Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess.
Born in Brooklyn in 1898 into a family of Russian Jewish immigrants, George Gershwin discovered the piano at twelve. At fifteen he left school to play songs for the publishers of Tin Pan Alley, New York’s popular-song district.
His first big hit, Swanee (1919), sung by Al Jolson, made him famous. With his brother Ira, a lyricist, he then wrote dozens of musicals and songs that became jazz standards, such as I Got Rhythm and Summertime.
In 1924 his Rhapsody in Blue brought jazz into the concert hall. Then came the Concerto in F, An American in Paris (1928), three Preludes for piano and the opera Porgy and Bess (1935). He died in Hollywood in 1937, aged thirty-eight, of a brain tumour.
Piano sheet music (2)
- I Got Rhythm, piano arrangement · level 4
- Swanee, piano arrangement · level 4