In 1931 George and Ira Gershwin wrote the music for a film called Delicious, starring Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.  The plot concerned a Scottish immigrant fleeing an immigration officer, hiding in a horse van owned by a wealthy Long Islander, with a Russian composer-pianist thrown in to complete the love triangle. In a sequence variously titled “Manhattan Rhapsody,” “New York Rhapsody” or “Rhapsody in Rivets,” Gaynor is about to be deported and separated from her happy Russian friends. In despair she wanders the streets of Manhattan, accompanied by street noises, newsboys shouting, the hammering of riveters and Gershwin’s music.

Gershwin later extracted the music from the movie, made some changes and titled it simply “Second Rhapsody” (the first being Rhapsody in Blue). This version was completed on May 23, 1931 and introduced by Gershwin at Symphony Hall in Boston on January 29, 1932, with Serge Koussevitzky conducting. The composer was pleased. “In many respects, such as orchestration and form,” he said, “it is the best thing I’ve written.”  

“There is no program to the Rhapsody,” Gershwin said. “As the part of the picture where it is to be played takes place in many streets of New York, I used as a starting-point what I called ‘a rivet theme,’ but, after that, I just wrote a piece of music without any program.” The contrasting tune he called the “Brahmsian melody.”

~ Program notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2023