Ira Gershwin | Ira Gershwin
Sep.13.2012
Et Tu, Audra?
It makes sense to buy this CD if you want to hear the glorious voice of Audra McDonald. But if you want to hear the even more glorious voice of George Gershwin stay away. This is a tampered version of his Porgy and Bess. It isn't just because the story and libretto have been changed--...
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Aug.05.2012
This song, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin, was introduced by Fred and Adele Astaire in Funny Face at the Alvin Theatre in New York City on November 22, 1927.
Funny Face was having a hard time of it during its Philadelphia tryout and this song was written to add life to the show. The idea for it...
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Jun.30.2012
This piece is in one movement.
It was in 1923 that Gershwin, having failed to prepare a harmony exercise for his third lesson with Rubin Goldmark (nephew of Hungarian composer Karl Goldmark and a pupil of Antonin Dvořák), turned in this composition, written several years earlier. As Gershwin...
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May.12.2012
The lyrics to this song are by B.G. DeSylva and Arthur Francis (Ira Gershwin). It was introduced by the entire cast—including George White himself—in George White's Scandals of 1922 at the Globe Theatre in New York City on August 28, 1922. All were in black, dancing against the...
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Apr.21.2012
During the writing of Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin, DuBose Heyward and Ira Gershwin were in the composer's workroom in New York when Heyward said that Porgy needed something more cheerful to sing in Act I. George went to the piano and in less than a minute improvised the main idea of what...
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Apr.10.2012
The music for this song came first and it demanded that the lyricist, Ira Gershwin, create an unusual limerick structure. Ira at first used “It Ain't Necessarily So” as his dummy title—a form-fitting set of syllables that had popped into his head. But then, after a couple of days spent...
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Mar.24.2012
This song was introduced by Fred Astaire, Gertrude MacDonald and Betty Compton in Funny Face at the Alvin Theatre in New York City on November 22, 1927.
In its review of Funny Face, the New Republic called this tune “the sensational event of the evening,” describing it as “An odd dark melody...
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Mar.11.2012
This song was introduced by Marjorie Gateson and John E. Hazzard in For Goodness Sake at the Lyric Theatre in New York City on February 20, 1922. Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant sang it in the 1951 film An American in Paris.
When this was written, Ira Gershwin was still using a pseudonym so as...
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Mar.07.2012
This song was introduced by Fred Astaire, Jan Duggan, Mary Dean, Pearl Amatore and Betty Rome in A Damsel in Distress, a film released by RKO onNovember 19, 1937.
It is in 6/8 time and marked allegretto scherzando. The verse is in A-minor, the refrain in F.
On May 12, 1937 Gershwin wrote a...
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Feb.26.2012
This duet was first sung by Todd Duncan and Anne Wiggins Brown in Porgy and Bess, whose New York premiere took place at the Alvin Theatre on October 10, 1935.
Some editions of the sheet music credit Ira as co-lyricist while others credit only DuBose Heyward. That Ira did have a hand in the...
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