George Gershwin was eleven when his family first brought a piano into their apartment. By the age of 25, he was at the very top of his field as a theater composer, writing a musical for Fred Astaire with his brother Ira as lyricist. He also made his debut as a “serious” composer with Rhapsody in Blue, followed the next year by an even more ambitious score, the Piano Concerto in F.  

Expanding beyond piano showcases for himself, Gershwin plotted his next classical score as a tone poem, taking inspiration from his visits to Paris. As he explained in a 1928 interview, he wanted to “portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris, as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere.” He wrote much of the music during several months spent in Paris in 1928, and he orchestrated the score himself in time for the premiere that December in New York. 

For this performance, Orpheus commissioned Javier Diaz to create a version for a smaller orchestra, including a part for soprano and alto saxophones to allow Branford Marsalis to join the ensemble as a peer. The quintessential moment highlighting the intersection of American jazz and European classical music comes when the trumpet plays a sultry solo into the felt crown of a fedora hat (or a mute with a similar tone), a moment in which,  

according to Gershwin, “our American friend, perhaps after strolling into a café and having a couple of drinks, has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness.” 

© 2023 Aaron Grad