Chapter 8: Listening Guide

Album/Year Released 

Premiered 1924

Artist/Composer

George Gershwin (1898–1937), composer and pianist: Paul Whiteman Orchestra (premiere 1924)

Genre/Style 

Symphonic jazz; orchestral jazz

Song Form 

Blues with extended form: combination of 12-bar blues and tango-style sections

Rhapsody in Blue was composed by George Gershwin in 1924 and premiered by Paul Whiteman’s orchestra at Aeolian Hall in New York. Commissioned for a concert titled An Experiment in Modern Music, the work aimed to present jazz elements in a symphonic setting and introduce concert audiences to the burgeoning style. Gershwin, trained in both classical and popular traditions, sought to bridge these worlds by combining the structural and harmonic sophistication of orchestral music with the rhythms, improvisatory gestures, and tonal inflections of jazz. At the time, jazz was associated with dance halls, vaudeville, and small ensembles and was considered popular or “low-brow” music. Gershwin’s work was one of the earliest serious attempts to integrate its language into concert music or the “high-brow” musical milieu. 

Before composing Rhapsody in Blue, Gershwin had experimented with integrating jazz and classical elements in his one-act opera Blue Monday (1922), which blended blues idioms with operatic conventions but achieved only modest success. Paul Whiteman, intent on “making a lady out of jazz” and presenting a distinctly American concert program, was intrigued by Gershwin’s innovative approach. He commissioned Gershwin to compose the rhapsody, encouraging him to weave jazz into a broader orchestral framework. Gershwin later recalled that the inspiration for Rhapsody in Blue came to him during a train journey, where he imagined the piece as a “musical kaleidoscope of America”—capturing the nation’s diversity, energy, and vibrant urban spirit.

One of the work’s most iconic features is the opening clarinet glissando—a glissando is a musical technique in which the player slides smoothly between two notes, producing a continuous, sweeping sound. In this case, the clarinet executes a dramatic upward sweep spanning about 17 notes, a flourish first performed by Ross Gorman in rehearsal. The glissando bridges the clarinet and piano textures and establishes a jazz-inflected timbre that recurs throughout the composition. The piano serves as both a melodic and an orchestral instrument, with passages featuring ragtime stride, comedic sections, and Tin Pan Alley song-plugger techniques, all reflecting Gershwin’s familiarity with contemporary popular styles. Sections of the rhapsody display wide-ranging harmonic exploration, with key modulations through B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, B, and E, while the central section is in C major. These shifts often center on the blues scale and incorporate blue notes, further contributing to the piece’s jazz character.

Rhapsody in Blue also relies on motivic development. Musicologist David Schiff identifies five primary themes and a sixth tag, many introduced in the first fourteen measures. The "Glissando theme" and the "Train theme" recur throughout, appearing both in orchestrated sections and piano solos, and illustrate Gershwin’s use of motivic interrelatedness. Rhythmic variety, including rubato and syncopation, and influences from ragtime, Cuban "clave" rhythms, and jazz idioms shape the overall texture and forward momentum. The orchestration uses both traditional symphonic instruments—strings, winds, brass, and percussion—and vernacular instruments such as saxophones, banjo, and accordion to reinforce the jazz or popular character of the work.

Structurally, Rhapsody in Blue functions as a rhapsody featuring a single extended movement with contrasting sections and improvisatory passages written into the score. The premiere featured Gershwin as piano soloist, accompanied by Ferde Grofé’s innovative orchestration for jazz band. The work typically runs around fifteen minutes and fifty-four seconds and is scored for a rich array of instruments, including solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, three horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and a diverse percussion section (bass drum, cymbals, glockenspiel, gong, snare drum, triangle), as well as strings.

Through its integration of jazz and classical elements, its varied piano styles, blues-based themes, and flexible, rhapsodic structure, Rhapsody in Blue exemplifies Gershwin’s unique approach to synthesizing popular and concert music idioms. The piece offers a dynamic framework in which piano and orchestra interact across a spectrum of rhythmic, harmonic, and timbral colors, embodying the spirit of American musical innovation.