By George, it's Gershwin!

This blogpost is written by the producer of Barry Humphries' BBC Radio 2 music series (the full series can be heard via this link).

Every series of Forgotten Musical Masterpieces has included George Gershwin compositions. This is not only because it’s hard to avoid the work of such a prolific early 20th century songwriter (in any series about vintage music), but also because the show’s presenter, Barry Humphries, is arguably the world’s biggest Gershwin fan!

During my years working on FMM for BBC Radio 2, what has struck me most about the legendary American composer, is how short George Gershwin's working life actually was! While Irving Berlin (Gershwin's contemporary) lived to be just over 100 (from 1888 to 1989), George Gershwin only reached his 38 birthday! Born in 1898, Gershwin died in 1937 of a brain tumour. I was truly shocked when I first discovered that fact, especially as his music is now so much a part of our lives - even for those, who didn't grow up listening constantly to Radio 2, like me! (I'll write about my family's listening habits and my early obsession with Radio 2 another time perhaps). As I say, Gershwin's brain tumour went undiagnosed for quite a while. So much so, people initially thought that drugs or alcohol were the cause of his sometimes strange behaviour, when in reality this was due to his (undiagnosed) medical condition, a very real human (and musical) tragedy.

It's truly quiet astonishing to me as I type this that George Gershwin should have achieved so much in such a short life. Just imagine how many more great works we've missed out on because of his untimely death. To help put this in some sort of context, in July 1925, when he was just 27 years old, George Gershwin became the first American-born musician to grace the cover of Time Magazine, confirming his prominence in American music and culture. When Gershwin's brain tumour was finally diagnosed, 12 years later, it was too late to save him.

George Gershwin had been born in the USA, in Brooklyn. His parents however were Russian Jews, who had run away from hostility in Europe, long before either World War started. George was one of four children (older brother Ira, younger brother Arthur and their sister Frances was the baby of the bunch). George Gershwin's personal story, regardless of how tragically his life ended, is inspirational. Little George, before he was famous, wanted most of all to be considered an American, first and foremost. George was an aggressive assimilationist, according to Larry Starr, who wrote an excellent biography of the American composer that's entitled simply, George Gershwin (published by Yale University Press, see image above). As Gershwin's career progressed, he increasingly wanted to be the main musical spokesman for his country and his Time magazine cover alone displays that he certainly achieved that!

So, who exactly first helped George Gershwin light the musical touchpaper?

The first piano the Gershwin family owned arrived through the front window of their apartment, several stories up, when they were living on Second Avenue in New York - just one of many places the family called home. They were always on the move and that was hardly unusual for the times they were living in. That piano was initially intended for Ira, George’s older brother. Until that point, the Gershwin household wasn’t particularly musical and, the acquisition of that piano came more from a desire for middle-class respectability, rather than the hope that one of the Gershwin children would be given an incentive to follow a career in music. George immediately sat down at it and played a tune, astonishing his whole household. He'd "secretly" been using a piano at a friend's apartment. The first of many opportunities that he more than made the most of!

George left school without graduating, but he got lucky and started as a song plugger and he progressed on from there. He was always seemingly in the right place at the right time and once again always on the move. When he was 19, he met the influential American music publisher called Max Dreyfus, who hired George to be a staff composer at a firm called T.B. Harms. There, George became friendly with Paul Whiteman in the early 1920s. As a result of that friendship, working on shows such as the George White Scandals of 1922, the music world was subsequently taken by storm by the piece Whiteman commissioned from Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue. That piece premiered in 1924 and is far too famous for us to consider playing on Forgotten Musical Masterpieces, however wonderful it may be and however much it may make a certain generation of British listeners crave a Flake chocolate by Cadbury's.

Three George Gershwin songs you'll hear in the current series of Barry's Forgotten Musical Masterpieces (starting on 11th July at 9pm on BBC Radio 2 and now on BBC Sounds too - listen to all four episodes via this link) are:

* Do It Again - Sue Allen

* Somebody Loves Me - Paul Whiteman & His Orchestra with vocal by Eddie Condon

* Do, Do, Do - Gertrude Lawrence

In previous series we've also played Gershwin's sister (her name is Frances) singing one of his songs. In fact, she recorded an album's worth of her brother's later in her life and you might be interested to seek that out. Then again, you might not have time, given the vast array of recorded musical interpretations of George Gershwin's work for you to pick from. Most recently, I've been enjoying The Essential Collection George Gershwin on the Avid label.

Gershwin never married. He was linked with Kay Swift, another American composer of the period. She was the first woman to compose a hit Broadway show. The Gershwin musical Oh Kay (starred Gertrude Lawrence) is said to have been inspired by Kay. Incidentally, we play one of Kay's compositions in episode 2 the title song to that hit show, Fine & Dandy. It's fabulous. Incidentally, when it went out live on the wireless, I received a message of twitter from someone kindly telling me that Kay Swift's granddaughter is Katharine Weber, whom you can read more about via this link. Katharine is a writer and, among her literary works is a book entitled, The Memory of All That which I'm more than a little intrigued about (you can read more here on Katharine's own website). Kay Swift, Katharine's maternal grandmother, had a 10 year relationship with George Gershwin. I'll have to add it to my booklist. Alas, I still haven't got through last year's reading list, although Katharine's book would surely now have to go to the top of the pile when it arrives.

Barry is always telling me about the literary works of Oscar Levant. He was a pianist and contemporary of Gershwin. He was also very witty and wrote three rather brilliant autobiographies, according to Barry. I have two of them, which I have still to read, but intend to do so soon (famous last words).

All three have very witty titles:

• A Smattering of Ignorance, New York : Doubleday, 1940

• The Memoirs of an Amnesiac, New York : Putnam's, 1965

• The Unimportance of Being Oscar, New York : Putnam's, 1968

Thanks for reading! Barry and I sincerely hope you'll enjoy the rest of the series.

And if you haven't already got the hint...

All four episodes of Barry's Forgotten Musical Masterpieces can be heard for the next month via this link.