George Gershwin (1898 to 1937)

In 1910 Morris and Rose bought a piano for their eldest son Ira, but it was soon used by George. Around 1912, George Gershwin received piano lessons from Charles Hambitzer, who assisted him until his death in 1918. George first learned the conventional piano techniques and all the European masterpieces. He also replayed pieces heard by orchestras at home.

In 1914 George Gershwin began to work in a music publishing house as a reviewer of light music. His work consisted of playing new songs of his publishing house in New York to the appropriate people and selling them well.

During this work, he began to compose songs and dance pieces himself.

In 1916 he began to play music rolls for electric pianos, which at that time had already been on the market for about 30 years. He played on them mainly rags, a piano style that was especially famous in America at that time, and later other famous works. During these years George Gershwin studied piano with the composer Rubin Goldmark and the avant-gardist Henry Cowell. In addition, Edward Kilenyi taught him music theory, harmony and instrumentation.

Also in 1916 he published his first composition When You Want 'Em You Can't Get 'Em, which, however, did not result in great success. Nevertheless, this piece attracted the attention of several Broadway composers, which brought him good cooperation in the years to come, and thus his pieces were played in musicals. A little later he published the ragtime piece Rialto Ripples, which brought him financial success.

After his first successes, in 1918 followed the song Swanee which was in the hits nationwide and made him famous accordingly. In 1919 George Gershwin wrote his own first Broadway revue called La, La Lucille. In 1922 followed the one-act opera Blue Monday, which has since been renamed 135th Street.

On January 7, George Gershwin began writing Rhapsody in Blue, a piece for two pianos. Ferde Grofé a composer, arranger and conductor, who wrote the score from the piano version, worked closely with George and even moved in with him during this time. The piece was completed on February 4, 1924 under the names of George Gershwin as composer and Ferde Grofé as instrumentalist. Rhapsody in Blue successfully combines jazz, blues and European art music.

On February 24, the best of the best and most influential people gathered at New York's Aeolian Hall to hear the piece performed by Paul Whitemans' orchestra. The concert became a historic event of extreme magnitude. It went down in history as the "Birth of Rhapsody in Blue." Among the guests of honor at the premiere was Walter Damrosch, who shortly thereafter commissioned George to write an orchestral work for the New York Symphony Society. The performance of this work, Concerto in F, took place at Carnegie Hall on December 3, 1925. George Gershwin sat at the piano for this premiere, as well as six other concerts in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore, and this time orchestrated the piece himself.

Also in 1924 George achieved his first great Broadway success with the musical Lady, Be Good! which he wrote together with his brother Ira. Included in this musical are the songs Oh, Lady, Be Good! and Fascinating Rhythm. This was the start of a close collaboration with his brother Ira as lyricist.

In 1925 George Gershwin met Kay Swift (Katherine Faulkner Swift, 1897-1993), also a composer. They worked together and benefited from each other's expertise. Shortly thereafter, the two began an ten year affair, though Kay Swift was still married to Jimmy Warburg at the time. Their divorce did not follow until 1934, and George and Kay also took a break from their relationship in August 1936.

George Gershwin made a trip to Europe in 1928, where he met Igor Stravinsky, who played an important role in his further compositions. From his trip came the piece An American in Paris.

During these years, he wrote many well-known songs such as Oh, Kay! (1926), Funny Face (1927), Strike Up de Band (1927 and 1930) and also Girl Crazy (1930).

In 1931, George Gershwin's most successful musical Of Thee I Sing, a satire on the political system in the United States, was created. This Broadway show was the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama. This media prize was awarded to outstanding journalistic, literary and musical works. From that year Gershwin was a composer for films in Hollywood.

In 1933, the Broadway play Pardon My English was performed, which was the only musical of that age to be set in Germany.

In 1935, George Gershwin's work Porgy and Bess was performed in Boston and New York. Before he began writing it, George spent a summer on Folly Island, an island near Charleston, South Carolina. There he familiarized himself with African-American jazz music. He also decreed that his magnum opus could only be performed scenically by black singers.

At the beginning of 1937, George met Paulette Goddard (1910-1990), an American actress. Paulette, who was married to Charlie Chaplin at that time, went on vacation with George for two whole months in May 1937. There George asked for Paulette's hand in marriage, but Paulette rejected the proposal because she would not leave Charlie Chaplin. Gershwin then wrote in June to Kay Swift, the woman with whom he had had an affair for the last ten years, that he would return for her. However, a relationship never came to pass.

A short time later on July 11, 1937 at 10:35 a.m., George Gershwin collapsed while working at his grand piano in Beverly Hills and died at the age of 38 as a result of a brain tumor. He was in the middle of writing the score to the film music of The Goldwys Follies. George was buried in Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.