This Is Gershwin: Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra

The placement of the little-played Second Rhapsody at the beginning of the program signals the kind of Gershwin recording this is going to be: the work, of which Gershwin himself was proud, is perhaps his most "classical" work harmonically, despite its outward similarities to the better known Rhapsody in Blue that preceded it. Pianist Joshua Pierce makes a good case for this work in his extensive notes, from which even Gershwin devotees will learn something new. As he points out, it didn't arise in circumstances at all similar to those than engendered Rhapsody in Blue, it was film music, for a now-lost film, and it marked the first major orchestral composition to appear in a sound film. Pierce's notes are replete with formal analysis in addition to providing historical background. On the spectrum of performances of the Gershwin standards from classical to jazz orientation, this disc falls very close to the former extreme. The big second theme of the Rhapsody in Blue is positively sober; perhaps a valuable corrective to a tradition in which it has taken on a layer of sentimentality that wouldn't have been present with the small forces for which Gershwin originally imagined the piece. Pierce finds "restlessness" in the shifting tempos and melodies of this famed work, which is a fresh way to look at it, and the complexities of the I Got Rhythm Variations also fare well in his careful reading. The Piano Concerto in F will be less convincing for many listeners. One of the key structural points of the piece is Gershwin's inventive weaving of orchestral jazz syncopations into a larger form: the piano first tries to tame them with reflective discourse, and then takes on jazz energy as the first movement proceeds. If the syncopations are damped down to the degree that they are here, the music has a tendency to fall apart. This is quite a novel Gershwin disc, and the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra does better at realizing the aims of Pierce and conductor Kirk Trevor than one might have reasonably expected. Recommended, especially when heard in conjunction with the booklet notes, but make sure you sample well and know what you're getting into.
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