Gershwin reviews

Recorded when Richter was in his late 70s, the Saint-Saëns is musically captivating, although one readily senses the Gershwin is not in the musical bloodstream of either pianist or conductor.

Julian Haylock

The Bavarian Radio Symphony has maintained its distinctive sound over many years: texturally transparent yet alluring, with lithe, sparkling violins, a bass end of unusual depth and clarity, agile, fine-tuned brass and mellifluous woodwind. Those qualities are to the fore in a programme of popular classics recorded live in October 2015.

The British pianist Mark Bebbington and American conductor Leon Botstein offer an extremely broad view of Gershwin’s Concerto in F, taking five minutes longer for the slow movement than Lincoln Mayorga and Steven Richman on the new Harmonia Mundi recording (see this month’s Concerto Choice, p80). The slower tempo may partly be imposed by the full size of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the generous acoustic of London’s St John’s, Smith Square.

In 2010, Steven Richman’s enterprising Harmonie Ensemble/ New York combined with pianist Lincoln Mayorga for a crisp, stylish and thoroughly enjoyable Harmonia Mundi recording of Gershwin’s evergreen Rhapsody in Blue, in Ferde Grofé’s original scoring for Paul Whiteman’s band. Now they’re reunited in an equally successful account of the Rhapsody’s full-scale successor, the Concerto in F, scored by Gershwin himself.

An ageless album, every performance full of characterful playing, the LSO clearly inspired by Previn’s idiomatic style, infectious swagger and sheer joy in this music. Daniel Jaffé

This popular American concerto emerges with immense charm: while Slatkin sets a convincing pace, Siegel’s playing is cool, refined, and has infectious swing in the rhapsodies and the ‘I Got Rhythm’ Variations. Michael Church

Broadway-Lafayette, America and France, New York and Paris. Pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s latest disc explores these trans-Atlantic connections, though the pairing is essentially the reciprocal influence between Gershwin and Ravel. Consciously or otherwise, the European art music aspect of Rhapsody in Blue is to the fore, this being very much the full orchestral version, with mannerisms to match. Conversely, Ravel’s fascination with jazz is brought out in the outer movements of his Concerto.

Characterisations, settings, production style, the edition used: Gershwin’s great opera always seems to hit the headlines one way or another. In 2011, Stephen Sondheim famously complained in advance about tinkerings and softenings in Diane Paulus’s American Repertory Theatre production. Francesca Zambello’s earlier staging, caught here at San Francisco Opera in 2009, had a much easier ride, though the director’s fondness for hyper-realism and fussy activity on stage may still find its detractors.

Gershwin’s jazz-inspired Rhapsody in Blue has been recorded by many fine pianists, but rarely by an out-and-out jazz performer such as Stefano Bollani. He treats most of the solo part with unexpected respect, and even un-swung rhythms. But he occasionally loosens up the text with exaggerated rubato and octave shifts; and in a couple of passages – taking his cue from the fact that Gershwin is known to have ad-libbed parts of the 1924 premiere – he embarks on free flights of improvisation.

The Labèque sisters have certainly got rhythm here in Gershwin’s piano-and-orchestra works transferred to two pianos. Irresistible verve. Jessica Duchen

 

Hard on the heels of Jean-Yves Thibaudet’s Gershwin recording, reviewed last month, comes this rival version of Rhapsody in Blue, as scored by Ferde Grofé for the famous 1924 premiere by Paul Whiteman’s augmented dance band, and the Variations on I Got Rhythm, in Gershwin’s original scoring for a touring salon orchestra.