Rhapsody in Blue ? ?
Imagine hearing the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue! It happened in the afternoon on February 12, 1924 in New York City. Gershwin was the pianist. Rachmaninoff was in the crowd; so was John Philip Sousa. (No pressure, right?) The concert was billed as An Experiment in Modern Music, and it must have been electric. The wild opening clarinet glissando sprouted as a musical joke from the orchestra’s playful clarinetist. Gershwin liked it during rehearsal, so he asked him to play it that way at the concert with “as much of a 'wail' as possible.” The first airing of this jazzy concerto established George Gershwin as a “serious” composer -- seriously fresh, bold, and American.
Read more here: http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/rhapsody-in-blue-by-george-gershwin-performed-for-first-time
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Image Credit:
http://songbook1.wordpress.com/pp/sw/composers-and-lyricists/george-gershwin/g-i-gershwin-film-score-standards-selected/?