Gershwin in the Heartland: Critical and Public Reception of the 1934 Leo Reisman Tour

Abstract

In 1934, ten years after the famous premiere of Rhapsody in Blue, the music of George Gershwin (1898–1937) could still stir up controversy. His compositions' trademark recipe of classical and popular and his controversial absorption of African American blues and jazz traditions had delighted listeners but had also fostered ambivalence and even contentious partisanship. Was Gershwin highbrow or lowbrow? Was his music a brilliant synthesis or jazz fakery? Apparently Gershwin himself, especially in the 1930s, reflected on his emerging fame and historical place in American music, mirrored by his new compositions of increased intellectual and emotional depth. In early 1934, nearly two years before the premiere of Porgy and Bess, George Gershwin and the Leo Reisman Orchestra embarked on a month-long concert tour of the eastern half of the United States.1 This tour enabled Gershwin to assess his stance in the greater American musical landscape and take the pulse of his reception by critics and audiences across the country. By 1934, the issue of Gershwin as Great American Composer, the contested boundaries of popular and classical music, and the definition of jazz had been hashed out over the last decade by the press of the urban East, but, as Gershwin discovered, these topics still burned in the nation's heartland.