Gershwin

Did the world need to hear Gershwin played by a viol consort, with an occasional recorder tootling along? If so, then why not Purcell accompanied by a jazz piano? The idea of combining the two composers in one performance is an attractive one, and the mix of vocal and instrumental pieces by each composer here is intelligently grouped. Arranger and leader Jay Bernfeld offers several parallels. Both composers were, in the broadest sense, urban sensations and musical-theater composers with bigger things on their minds; both managed to complete one towering opera before dying young. He might have added more items to his list: the ground basses of Purcell's time are elaborated by their melody lines in a manner akin to, if not precisely comparable to, the structure of Gershwin's songs.

This Sony-made 30CD classical music collection covers almost all classical music, from the early Baroque period represented by Bach to the schools of classical music by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms represent romantic, national and even modern musical schools led by Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, etc. representative, everything wonderful and vivid.

Gershwin s Rhapsody in Blue is one of the most successful fusions of classical music and jazz ever, and is one of the most popular of all American concert works. Gershwin described the piece, which opens with an unforgettable two-and-a-half octave glissando wail on the clarinet, as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot… … our metropolitan madness.

Gershwin Rhapsody - Jean-Yves Thibaudet & Michael Feinstein / Commemorating the 1924 premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet collabs with Michael Feinstein, the 'one-man encyclopaedia of the Great American Songbook' to celebrate the magic of Gershwin. Gershwin Rhapsody sees best-loved Gershwin melodies sit alongside world premiere recordings of 4 rediscovered Gershwin songs: 'Graceful and Elegant', 'Dance of the Waves', 'Sutton Place' and 'Under the Cinnamon Tree'.