Gershwin

The acclaimed pianist David Greilsammer performs three pieces that celebrate the strong musical ties between Europe and America during the early part of the 20th century. The disc includes Polish-born composer Alexandre Tansman’s Piano Concerto No. 2, receiving its world premiere recording, Gershwin’s ever popular Rhapsody in Blue, and Nadia Boulanger’s rarely played Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra. Steven Sloane conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

“Everything works to illuminate the music," wrote The Times of Love and Death, Martin James Bartlett’s debut recital on Warner Classics. The young British pianist has now recorded two celebrated rhapsodies for piano and orchestra, both from the ‘art deco’ period of the 20th century: Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue and Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. His partners are the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Joshua Weilerstein. The album is completed by seven shorter Gershwin and Rachmaninoff pieces for solo piano – as written by the composers themselves or as arranged by the American virtuoso Earl Wild.

Freddy Kempf and Andrew Litton with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra here join forces to present a disc of works by George Gershwin. Rhapsody in Blue was originally arranged by Ferde Grofé for jazz band before being orchestrated for symphony orchestra. Here Kempf and the Bergen Philharmonic play this original version. Concerto in F was a commission for Gershwin to write a ‘proper’ piano concerto, but still takes the rhythms, melodic structures and bluesy harmonies of popular music.

The popularity of George Gershwin's piano music with audiences and performers, large to begin with, has only grown in the years since 1990, and distinctive new recordings have been appearing frequently. Here's one covering all the music for piano and orchestra, which is an effective way to trace the development of Gershwin's music within a single genre.

Presented as ‘An Experiment in Modern Music’ when it was premiered in 1924, Rhapsody in Blue made George Gershwin famous, and he soon set to work on a version for solo piano, recorded here by Claire Huangci. In her first solo disc for Alpha Classics, Claire was keen to celebrate this centenary alongside her roots in America, where she was born, studied music and made her debut as a concert artist at the age of nine. The brilliant improviser and transcriber Earl Wild (1915-2010) took Gershwin’s songs (Liza, Fascinatin’ Rhythm, Somebody Loves Me, I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, Oh, Lady Be Good, The Man I Love) to form the basis of his Seven Virtuoso Etudes for solo piano.