The Gershwin Piano Concerto in F

[leyton]

This is one of Gershwin's less well-known pieces, but it is one of my favorites. (Okay, all of his are my favorites.) Anyone else familiar with this piece? Like it, don't like it?

I am familiar with the first movement (learned it for a concerto competition at one point) and I love several things about it. One, the playful themes that are developed in the middle of the piece; second, the melody that the piano enters on drives me nuts. The harmonies in particular interest me - the first chord, if you can call it that - is Dflat-E-Bflat-C. I could dwell on that for the duration of the piece.

The second and third movements I'm less familiar with, and I think they are somewhat thin on material though in my experience it is generally the first movement that carries the weight of most concerti. Though I love the melody that appears near the end of the second movement and is repeated in the third. I think it's a good counterbalance to the piano's initial theme from the first movement.

PS - The CD I listen to of it is usually the Earl Wild/Boston Pops version... don't much care for the Oscar Levant version.

[fortyfeetunder]

1. woodwind perspective

I play in the wind section, and Concerto in f is probably the most challenging of the Gershwin pieces I've performed in orchestra, both with intonation and technique. I think I've done this at least twice. It is by far more interesting listening than performing it.

[leyton]

2. It sounds like it would require nimble fingers.

Unlike in Rhapsody in Blue, many of the themes that the orchestra deals with are all over the place. (I assume you are referring to all the pentatonic (I think that's what they're called) scales in the first two movements?)

[fortyfeetunder]

3. Not the scales but the arpeggios

They are a bear to master, but the overall effect is great.

[FreedomFry]

4. I saw Wild perform live. But that wasn't the best part ...

I grew up listening to my mother's Gershwin albums. Leonard Pennario's "Rhapsody in Blue" was wonderful, but the "Concerto in F" with Earl Wild was our favorite. When he came to the Hollywood Bowl for an all-Gershwin night, my parents took me to see him. I must have been about 13.

After the national anthem, when the lights went down, in the quiet just before the concert began, a voice boomed out over the PA system:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, we are honored tonight to have with us in the audience Mr. Ira Gershwin."

A spotlight shone way down in front, stage right, on a very white head, and a frail Ira Gershwin rose to acknowledge the audience, who first gasped, then rose in unison, and cheered.

The performance was wonderful, but it's that white head and the collective gasp of thousands that I remember best.

[regnaD kciN]

5. The SACD of that performance/recording...

...is spectacular, especially if you have a good multi-channel system so that you can hear the three-track version instead of the stereo mixdown. I was just listening to it for the first time late this afternoon.