Rhapsody in Blue Reimagined

12 February 1924 was a landmark day for classical music. Bandleader Paul Whiteman had organised a concert at New York’s Aeolian Hall called “An Experiment in Modern Music” to prove that jazz could at least be taken as a serious artform by classical audiences. The programme of 23 items was packed with bland arrangements of popular tunes, and might well have flopped had it not been for the penultimate number: George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for piano and jazz band. As soon as the famous clarinet glissando began to soar aloft (improvised in rehearsal and given the green light by the composer), audience members, who had started to leave, returned to their seats to watch the full drama unfold. Led by Gershwin at the piano, the performance was dizzying, exuberant and energetic, and changed classical music forever. Almost exactly a century on, Rhapsody in Blue still captivates with its grand showtunes, colourful orchestrationand virtuosic piano writing. Inevitably, following the publication of Ferde Grofé’s full-orchestra arrangement alongside a through-written piano part, performances have tended to adhere closely to the score. But for American pianist Lara Downes, Rhapsody in Blue’s improvisatory, free-wheeling nature opened the doors for a new version—one that respected the original score, but which also updated some of its soundscapes to resonate with the here and now. After all, Gershwin referred to his piece as a “kaleidoscope of America”, as Downes explains to Apple Music Classical. “What I always think about is what Gershwin intended, and what he was trying to capture,” she says. “For me, it’s interesting to see the ways in which that is very different 100 years later, but also the ways in which this country is not that different at all. So, it was a question of trying to illustrate his time and our time rolled into one.” To bring this sense of nowness to Gershwin’s music, Downes approached Puerto Rican composer Edmar Colón for a new arrangement that reverbera