Gershwin, George. Typed letter signed, 1 page (8 x 6 ¾ in.; 203 x 171 mm.), "New York, New York," 24 March 1932 to Miss Edith...

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Gershwin, George. Typed letter signed, 1 page (8 x 6 ¾ in.; 203 x 171 mm.), "New York, New York," 24 March 1932 to Miss Edith D. Moody; chipping at head, mounting remnants on verso. Composer George Gershwin is asked to compare Rhapsody in Blue (1924) to An American in Paris (1928). Gershwin writes in full: To clear up the situation about which you write, this is the fact--RHAPSODY IN BLUE was written in three weeks of actual work. You also ask, in my opinion, is it outranked by AN AMERICAN IN PARIS. It is very difficult for me to compare my compositions, as they both have such different qualities. On 12 February 1924, Paul Whiteman and his Palais Royal Orchestra offered An Experiment in Modern Music which included Gershwin's debut of Rhapsody in Blue. The historic jazz concert, with Gershwin at the piano, took place at New York's Aeolian Hall. The concert, the occasion for Gershwin's historic debut of his new symphonic work Rhapsody in Blue, solidified Gershwin's place in music history. Ferde Grofé orchestrated the composition. Gershwin claimed that the overall outline of the Rhapsody took shape in his mind while he was traveling by train to Boston for the out-of-town tryout of Sweet Little Devil; he began the main draft of the work on 7 January 1924. He finished the sketch of the composition about three weeks after he started on January 25th. Grofé's scoring of the work took ten days and was completed on 4 February 1924. Rehearsals lasted five days. Whiteman called his concert An Experiment in Modern Music insisting, "The experiment is to be purely educational." Rhapsody in Blue was the next-to-last piece on the program. Gershwin appeared on stage, strode quickly and confidently to the piano, sat down, exchanged glances with Whiteman--and then came clarinet soloist Gorman's opening wail; an exuberant, unexpected beginning that had the audience transfixed. Gershwin's hands flew over the keyboard. After the Rhapsody ended, there were several seconds of silence followed by a crescendo of tumultuous applause and enthusiastic cries. The Whiteman concert deserves credit for introducing what Rudy Vallee aptly called a kind of "symphonized syncopation'' to the musical cognoscenti--by presenting it in a concert hall; Gershwin's Rhapsody succeeded in bestowing "respectability" to jazz. Gershwin's An American in Paris premiered at Carnegie Hall on 13 December 1928. Described as "a tone poem for orchestra" the New York Philharmonic Orchestra played the piece with enormous élan and obvious relish. An American in Paris shows a greater diversity of musical texture than Gershwin's earlier works, mainly achieved by contrapuntally combining important thematic elements with figurations of one kind or another and with commensurate emphasis on detail. Indeed, comparing Rhapsody in Blue to An American in Paris would be like comparing apples to oranges.