The folk opera, Porgy and Bess, was Gershwin’s last work in the field of serious music—and his greatest. It took Gershwin over two years to write his opera, a period during which he spent some time in the opera’s setting of Charleston, South Carolina, absorbing not only local color but also native Negro music whose style he skilfully assimilated into his own writing. He completed his opera in the summer of 1935; on September 30 its world première took place in Boston; and on October 10, it began its New York run. It cannot be said that either critics or audiences were fully aware at the time that they were hearing a masterwork. Some of the Boston and New York scribes found things to admire in the opera, but most of them were highly critical. Olin Downes said “it does not utilize all the resources of the operatic composer or pierce very often to the depths of the pathetic drama.” Lawrence Gilman found Gershwin’s emphasis on the popular element a disturbing blemish while Virgil Thomson did not hesitate at the time to refer to it as “a fake.” The run of 124 performances in New York (followed by a three-month tour) represented a box-office failure.
Gershwin himself remained convinced he had written a work of first importance, but regrettably he did not live to see his faith in his opera justified beyond his wildest hopes or aspirations. Revived in New York in 1941 it had an eight-month run, the longest of any revival in Broadway history. More important still, many critics revised earlier estimates. Virgil Thomson now spoke of it as “a beautiful piece of music and a deeply moving play for the lyric theater.” Olin Downes said that Gershwin had here “taken a substantial step, and advanced the cause of native opera.” The New York Music Critics Circle singled it out as the most important musical revival of that season.
But still greater triumphs awaited the opera. In 1952, a Negro cast toured Europe under the auspices of the State Department. Before that tour was over, several years later, the opera had been heard throughout Europe, the Near East, in countries behind the Iron Curtain, the Soviet Union and Latin America. Everywhere it enjoyed acclaim realized by few contemporary operas anywhere. There were not many dissenting voices in the universal judgment that Porgy and Bess was one of the most significant operas of the twentieth century, and certainly one of the most popular. And its popularity was further enhanced by the stunning production given it by Samuel Goldwyn in motion pictures in 1959.
The text of the opera was based on the play Porgy, by Dorothy and Du Bose Heyward, produced by the Theater Guild in New York in 1927, which in turn had been adapted from Du Bose Heyward’s novel of the same name. The opera text and lyrics were written by Du Bose and Dorothy Heyward with several additional lyrics by Ira Gershwin. The tragic love affair of the cripple, Porgy, and Bess, a lady of easy virtue, is set in the Negro tenement, Catfish Row, in Charleston, South Carolina. Porgy has found true happiness with Bess for the first time in his life. When Crown, Bess’ old sweetheart returns to claim her, Porgy kills him but manages to elude the law after having been detained a while. Upon returning to Catfish Row he discovers that his Bess had succumbed to the lure of dope, and the gay life in New York offered her by Sportin’ Life. Heartbroken, Porgy jumps in his goat cart to follow Bess to New York and try to bring her back.
The main melodic sections of the opera have provided the material for several delightful suites. The most famous is A Symphonic Picture by Robert Russell Bennett, commissioned by Fritz Reiner, the conductor of the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1942. Bennett created out of the score an integrated tone poem faithful to Gershwin’s own harmonic and orchestral intentions. The tone poem (or suite) is made up of the following sequences in the order of their appearance: Scene of Catfish Row with the peddler’s calls; Opening Act II; “Summertime” and Opening of Act I; “I Got Plenty of Nuttin’”; Storm Music; “Bess, You Is My Woman Now”; “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and the finale, “Oh Lawd I’m On My Way.”
George Gershwin himself prepared an orchestral suite from his opera score in 1936, and conducted it in performances with several major American orchestras in 1936-1937. This manuscript, long forgotten, was found in the library of Ira Gershwin, and was revived in 1959 by Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Symphony. Now named Catfish Row, to distinguish it from other suites prepared by other musicians, it had five sections: “Catfish Row,” “Porgy Sings,” “Fugue,” “Hurricane,” and “Good Morning, Brother.”
Beryl Rubinstein transcribed five of the principal melodies from the opera for piano, and Jascha Heifetz for violin and piano.
The three piano Preludes are famous not only in their original version but also in transcriptions for symphony orchestra. The first prelude, in B-flat major, is rhythmically exciting, highlighting the basic elements of the tango and the Charleston. The second, in C-sharp minor, is the most famous of the set. This is an eloquent three-part blues melody. The concluding prelude, in E-flat major, once again like the first one has greater rhythmic than melodic interest, a lively expression of uninhibited good feelings. Besides transcriptions for orchestra by Roy Bargy, Gregory Stone and several others, these preludes have been adapted for violin and piano by Heifetz, for trumpet and piano by Gregory Stone, and for saxophone and piano by Sigurd Rascher.
The Rhapsody in Blue was Gershwin’s first work for symphony orchestra and it is the composition with which he first won fame, fortune, and artistic significance. It was commissioned by Paul Whiteman for an all-American music concert planned by that bandleader for Aeolian Hall, New York, on February 12, 1924. With the composer at the piano, the Rhapsody appeared as the tenth and penultimate number of a long program, but it was the work that gave Whiteman’s concert its main interest and significance. The critics the following day were divided in their opinion. On the one hand, Henry T. Finck considered it superior to the music of Schoenberg and Milhaud; equally high words of praise came from Gilbert W. Gabriel, William J. Henderson, Olin Downes, Deems Taylor, and Carl van Vechten. In the opposite camp stood Pitts Sanborn and Lawrence Gilman who described the work as “meaningless repetition” and “trite, feeble, and conventional.”
But the opposing opinions notwithstanding, the Rhapsody in Blue immediately became one of the most famous pieces of serious music by an American. It was transcribed for every possible instrument or groups of instruments; it was adapted several times for ballet; it was used in a motion picture. Royalties from the sale of sheet music and records brought in a fortune. Through the years it has never lost its popularity; it is still one of the most frequently performed American symphonic works.