Page 262 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

260 RAGTIME AND JAZZ INFLUENCES

rejection of a white European pianist and arranger Ferde Grofé.
tradition, was also seized on by The unmistakable opening clarinet
Igor Stravinsky, recently settled in glissando was also not Gershwin’s
France, in 1919, when he created own invention but rather that of
his dissonant Piano-Rag-Music, Whiteman’s clarinetist. Further
which pulls apart and rearranges You might lose your orchestrations by Grofé, in 1926 and
ragtime like a cubist painting. spontaneity and, instead 1942, were to fix Rhapsody in Blue
of composing first-rate firmly in the classical repertoire.
Jazz meets classical Gershwin, end up with Following the success of his
By the 1920s, ragtime had been second-rate Ravel. concerto, Gershwin traveled to
superseded in the United States by Maurice Ravel Paris to study composition. He
more improvisational and flexible to George Gershwin hoped to work with composers
styles of jazz, particularly in jazz such as Nadia Boulanger and
dance bands. One of the most Maurice Ravel, but all potential
popular bands was led by Paul tutors refused, concerned that such
Whiteman, who relied on carefully studies would endanger Gershwin’s
orchestrated arrangements, own style. Returning to New York,
using a large ensemble, rather he started on his most ambitious
than improvisation. He made down the offer, but Whiteman stage project, the opera Porgy and
continued attempts to introduce informed the press that he was Bess, which had its premiere on
the concertgoing public to the new writing the concerto anyway, and Broadway, in 1935. Styled as a “folk
jazz style, which he considered to so Gershwin’s hand was forced. opera,” it drew heavily on New York
be the first truly American music, Rhapsody in Blue premiered on jazz and African American folk
giving performances at New York’s February 12, 1924 and was instantly music such as spirituals and the
prestigious Aeolian Hall. It was acclaimed by both classical and blues in songs such as It Ain’t
for one of these events, titled “An jazz audiences, which included Necessarily So and Summertime.
Experiment in Modern Music,” that Sousa, now the elder statesman of The opera also incorporated many
Whiteman commissioned a young, ragtime, and the Russian composer classical techniques, such as
successful songwriter named Sergei Rachmaninoff. The piece leitmotifs (themes introduced to
George Gershwin to compose itself was only sketched out by the identify characters) and recitative
a piano concerto. When first inexperienced Gershwin, who left (speechlike song), and even
approached, Gershwin turned the orchestration to Whiteman’s elements of the polyrhythms and

African American genres that changed
the course of classical music

The cakewalk Ragtime Jazz
Enslaved plantation workers first danced the The music of African American composer Arising from the music of enslaved African
cakewalk, strutting in couples to syncopated Scott Joplin—such as the famous Maple Americans in the South, jazz was an
rhythms in parody of their white owners. Leaf Rag—and the marches of John Philip improvised form that drew on work songs,
The dance won European attention when Sousa brought the ragtime style out of a marches, and dance rhythms. It was
performed at the 1889 Paris Exposition. purely black idiom and into the mainstream. popularized in New Orleans in the 1890s.

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