Georges Gershwin (1898-1937)

The solo clarinet’s glissando at the very beginning of the Rhapsody in Blue is looked on by some observers as a Ashkenazic-Yiddish-Klezmer(ish) musical effect.

Actually a glissando is a high ``klezmer-sounding'' string of notes, ending on a high ``screeching'' note. For the anecdote; it was done accidentally at a practice by the soloist. Gershwin told the soloist that he liked it and should play it like that.

Figure: Georges Gershwin (1898-1937)

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While researching Gershwin's life one is struck with the fact that his music was deeply influenced by him being Jewish. His interest in the Yiddish theatre is known. He has even planned writing a Jewish opera. He actually wrote some sketches for the work which was to be called Dybbuk. He gave up the project when he heard that the rights for the original play was owned by the Italian composer, Lodovico Rocca.

Borrowings from the traditional Synagogue music into the most famous songs of Gershwin has been noted by many scholars.

Examples are numerous, among them: is the famous tune ‘S Wonderful. It shows many similarities to Goldfaden’s Jewish tune, Noach’s Teive. Both songs have almost exact copies of the same tune, and partly even the same notes. Another of Gershwin’s songs that has resemblance to Yiddish music was My One and Only from the 1927 show of Funny Face. Seventeen and Twenty-One from Strike Up The Band has a similar melody to Der Pach Tanz and Schuster and Schneider Tanz.

The predominance of the melody over other components, which can be thought as ``normal and usual'' in songs, when combined with his favoring the minor keys added with the uncanny resemblances to commonly known Synagogues chants, and downright borrowing many of them in Porgy and Bess and other most important works makes Gershwin a ``Jewish'' composer.

Some of George Gershwin’s songs even resemble Biblical prayer chants. An example of this is It Ain’t Necessarily So from Porgy and Bess. This song is similar to the prayer that one chants after one reads the Torah in bar (or bat) mitzvah and at every Sabbath.

Musical plays are also an important facet of the Jewish musical culture. See Musical Plays on the Hebrew Stage, an excellent article by Dan Almagor^4.7