Leonard Bernstein - Gershwin: Rhapsody In Blue, An American In Paris - Speakers Corner LP [ Record ]

This fast and furious orchestral work with piano, which begins with what most surely be the most famous clarinet glissando of modern times, was composed with the intention of presenting as many facets as possible of music from the New World in the short space of around 15 minutes. In his "Rhapsody in Blue" Gershwin wanted to paint a musical kaleidoscope of America — our enormous melting pot, our typical national traits, our blues, our seething city life.

With this in mind, Leonard Bernstein made a number of recordings of the work and among the many excellent recordings that he made as a conductor or as a soloist, this present version with the Columbia Orchestra, from 1959, is especially of note. Bernstein takes on a double function as a conductor and soloist and maneuvers his way safely and surely through the highly diversified score to create a well-rounded picture filled with hefty orchestral dynamics and finely chiseled solo playing. In Gershwin's freely composed work the soloist and orchestra do not resort to bombastic shock effects or egomaniac keyboard acrobatics, and so this work can be described as rhapsodic in the very best sense of the word.

Most fittingly, on the B side there is another freely composed work — the autobiographical sketch titled "An American in Paris." The superb New York Philharmonic musicians paint the impressions of a visitor to the hectic French capital city — that, too, is the sound of America.