It has always been clear to us - it is a fact we have always known - that Jacob Gershovitz (or "Jacob Gershvin" as he chose to call himself) was not just a man with several ugly names, but in fact a writer of unspeakably bad music. Thus it was refreshing to see in the Times Literary Supplement of the twenty-first of January 2011 that we are by no means alone in that perception.
Paul Rosenfeld, the highly esteemed American critic, detected in this "Gershvin" we are there told "a weakness of spirit, possibly as a consequence of the circumstance that the new world attracted the less stable types."
The composer Virgil Thompson, reviewing the première of the Negrophilistic Porky and Blues in 1935, found it "crooked folklore and half-way opera."
As recently as 1980, a contributor to the New Grove Dictionary roundly and absolutely dismissed the aforementioned wretch "Gerschvin" as having "limited experience in developing structural material" and pointed out the fact, an elementary one really, that his "serious" productions "are structurally defective."
Needless to say all that (which we have drawn from the TLS) is obvious to a person of refined taste. Yet the plebeian Russian popularist Shoestopkavinch, upon seeing "Porky" in 1945, cried "magnificent" and compared "Gershvin" to Mussorgscy. Which only goes to show how right we are in our perception of Shoestopkavinch as well! A very clear case there of like attracting like is it not.
Of course now in a new impoverished orthodoxy - driven by greed - the degraded and infantile productions of "Gershvin," whose boyhood was unsurprisingly "marked by an interest in athletics and an indifference to school," are accorded the utmost respect, thrust down the throats of every one who will permit it, and have even become the subject of courses in educational establishments (to their lasting shame).
Thus we may conclude: orthodoxy - mere tradition even - is not enough. Without an informed æsthetic perception there can be no value.
That George Gershwin's music offers little evidence of organic development, whilst undeniable, does not of itself signify a lack of any substance; his music should be accepted on its own terms rather than on someone else's and, for those who do so, there is plenty of substance to admire; if composers as diverse as Ravel, Schönberg and Carter could speak as well of him as they did, I need hardly spring to his defence!Paul Rosenfeld, the highly esteemed American critic, detected in this "Gershvin" we are there told "a weakness of spirit, possibly as a consequence of the circumstance that the new world attracted the less stable types."
The composer Virgil Thompson, reviewing the première of the Negrophilistic Porky and Blues in 1935, found it "crooked folklore and half-way opera."
As recently as 1980, a contributor to the New Grove Dictionary roundly and absolutely dismissed the aforementioned wretch "Gerschvin" as having "limited experience in developing structural material" and pointed out the fact, an elementary one really, that his "serious" productions "are structurally defective."
Needless to say all that (which we have drawn from the TLS) is obvious to a person of refined taste. Yet the plebeian Russian popularist Shoestopkavinch, upon seeing "Porky" in 1945, cried "magnificent" and compared "Gershvin" to Mussorgscy. Which only goes to show how right we are in our perception of Shoestopkavinch as well! A very clear case there of like attracting like is it not.
Of course now in a new impoverished orthodoxy - driven by greed - the degraded and infantile productions of "Gershvin," whose boyhood was unsurprisingly "marked by an interest in athletics and an indifference to school," are accorded the utmost respect, thrust down the throats of every one who will permit it, and have even become the subject of courses in educational establishments (to their lasting shame).
Thus we may conclude: orthodoxy - mere tradition even - is not enough. Without an informed æsthetic perception there can be no value.
I'm not about to spring to the defence of your ever more absurd spellings of composers' names, either, but that's most certainly not because they require no defence...