Quick Facts
- NAME: George Gershwin
- OCCUPATION: Songwriter
- BIRTH DATE: September 26, 1898
- DEATH DATE: July 11, 1937
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Brooklyn, New York
- PLACE OF DEATH: Hollywood, California
Best Known For
George Gershwin was one of the most significant and popular American composers, known for his Broadway musicals as well as orchestral and piano compositions.
George Gershwin. (2012). Biography.com. Retrieved 11:41, Feb 07, 2012 from http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643
George Gershwin [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643, February 07
" George Gershwin." 2012. Biography.com 07 Feb 2012, 11:41 http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643
' George Gershwin', Biography.com,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643 [accessed Feb 07, 2012]
" George Gershwin," Biography.com, http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643 (accessed Feb 07, 2012).
George Gershwin [Internet]. Biography.com; 2012 [cited 2012 Feb 07]. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643.
George Gershwin, http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643 (last visited Feb 07, 2012).
George Gershwin, http://www.biography.com/people/george-gershwin-9309643 (last visited Feb 07, 2012).
Synopsis
(born September 26, 1898, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.—died July 11, 1937, Hollywood, California) one of the most significant and popular American composers of all time. He wrote primarily for the Broadway musical theatre, but important as well are his orchestral and piano compositions in which he blended, in varying degrees, the techniques and forms of classical music with the stylistic nuances and techniques of popular music and jazz.
Early career and influences
Gershwin was the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants. Although his family and friends were not musically inclined, Gershwin developed an early interest in music through his exposure to the popular and classical compositions he heard at school and in penny arcades. He began his musical education at age 11, when his family bought a second-hand upright piano, ostensibly so that George's older sibling, Ira, could learn the instrument. When George surprised everyone with his fluid playing of a popular song, which he had taught himself by following the keys on a neighbor's player piano, his parents decided that George would be the family member to receive lessons. He studied piano with the noted instructor Charles Hambitzer, who introduced his young student to the works of the great classical composers. Hambitzer was so impressed with Gershwin's potential that he refused payment for the lessons; as he wrote in a letter to his sister, “I have a new pupil who will make his mark if anybody will. The boy is a genius”
Gershwin continued to broaden his musical knowledge and compositional technique throughout his career with such disparate mentors as the idiosyncratic American composers Henry Cowell and Wallingford Riegger, the distinguished traditionalist Edward Kilenyi, and Joseph Schillinger, a musical theorist known for his mathematically grounded approach to composition. After dropping out of school at age 15, Gershwin earned an income by making piano rolls for player pianos and by playing in New York nightclubs. His most important job in this period was his stint as a song plugger (probably the youngest in Tin Pan Alley), demonstrating sheet music for the Jerome Remick music-publishing company. In an era when sheet-music sales determined the popularity of a song, song pluggers such as Gershwin worked long hours pounding out tunes on the piano for potential customers. Although Gershwin's burgeoning creativity was hampered by his three-year stint in “plugger's purgatory” (as Gershwin biographer Isaac Goldberg termed it), it was nevertheless an experience that greatly improved his dexterity and increased his skills at improvisation and transposing. While still in his teens, Gershwin was known as one of the most talented pianists in the New York area and worked as an accompanist for popular singers and as a rehearsal pianist for Broadway musicals. In 1916 he composed his first published song, “When You Want 'Em You Can't Get 'Em (When You've Got 'Em You Don't Want 'Em),” as well as his first solo piano composition, “Rialto Ripples.”
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