Gershwin, George (1898-1937): Lullaby
George Gershwin was born in Brooklyn in 1898 and died prematurely in Hollywood at the age of 38. His musical career began as a "song-plugger" in Tin Pan Alley from where he worked his way up to become the toast of Broadway. Writing hit songs and even shows, he stamped his personal idiom on the course of popular American music. Yet for all his early success with popular music, Gershwin longed to be taken seriously. He wanted to study composition with both Maurice Ravel and Nadia Boulanger, but both refused his request as they were in awe of his talent, popularity and wealth. He took lessons from Hungarian émigré, Edward Kilenyi, who gave him a thorough course in classical theory and exposed him to current European composers, such as Schoenberg and Debussy.
Gershwin wrote Lullaby, one of his first “serious” compositions, as a student exercise in about 1919. Conceived at the piano and composed in full harmony, the one-movement work was scored for string quartet and became a favourite at private musicales held by Gershwin’s friends. The melody of the piece took on a second life as an aria in his opera Blue Monday. For the next four decades, revivals of Blue Monday provided the melody’s only appearance. It wasn’t until 1967 that the original string quartet received its first public performance by the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress.
Cast in ternary form, Lullaby features the melodic genius and masterful blending of classical and jazz elements evident in later Gershwin masterpieces such as Rhapsody in Blue (1924), An American in Paris (1928) and Porgy and Bess (1935). True to its name, Lullaby moves slowly and softly with hypnotic repetition. Delicate harmonics in the first violin introduce the work. The cello then carries the main melody, a tranquil yet swinging tune. The colourful harmonies and syncopated rhythms are somewhat bluesy and suggestive of ragtime. Changes in texture add interest to the repetitions. A middle section develops thematic ideas, keeping the syncopated motion, except for brief “recitative” solos in the violin and cello. Even though the return of the first section is strong (con fuoco), it soon ends delicately with harmonics in all voices and gentle pizzicatos.
Elizabeth Dalton, 2015