The George Gershwin Reader (review)

Abstract

George Gershwin Reader. Edited by Robert Wyatt and John Andrew Johnson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. [xiv, 354 p. ISBN 0-19513019-7. $30.00.] Chronology, bibliography, index. life and music of George Gershwin have occasioned a wide-ranging and voluminous mass of written commentarybeginning in the early 1920s, when the young composer of Swanee was celebrated as the hottest new songwriter emerging from Tin Pan Alley, and continuing to the present day. There is relatively little in this body of writing that could properly be considered scholarship, and the material itself has rarely been the subject of systematic scholarly scrutiny. Even items obviously essential to Gershwin studies, like the handful of short but important articles written by the composer himself, go in and out of print in various formats with frustrating regularity. A volume devoted to presenting diverse, representative, and significant material by and about Gershwin in one uniform collection, carefully edited and designed for permanence, would fill a deep and lingering lacuna in the literature on American music. Considering the vast popularity of Gershwin's music, such a volume could also appeal to an unusually large group of readers. Expectations run high, consequently, for George Gershwin Reader. It gives me no pleasure to report that George Gershwin Reader fails to fulfill the high expectations it excites. Even worse, it fails for the most basic and egregious of reasons: the editorial methodology is inadequate. Carelessness and inconsistency in editing mar the volume to an alarming degree. Editors of anthologies like George Gershwin Reader have two principal areas of responsibility. To begin with, the selections must be well chosen, arranged in a logical order, and of course present the original texts with scrupulous accuracy. This is primary, but the reader of such a collection should also expect that the editors will provide helpful commentary-offering succinct background information on the authors and the selections, clearly identifying errors found in the original sources, crossreferencing issues and possible contradictions among the various texts, and suggesting additional sources that could further illuminate the material that has been chosen. I will consider these issues in sequence. editors of George, Gershwin Reader did compile much worthwhile material. Reminiscences of the composer by family and friends are included in the book, along with newspaper accounts of major premieres, articles both casual and serious from periodicals, and the occasional selection from a book. Particularly welcome are the generous offerings from Gershwin's correspondence; eleven letters exchanged between the composer and librettist DuBose Heyward tellingly document the evolution of Porgy and Bess. Editor Robert Wyatt's interviews with Todd Duncan and Anne Brown, who portrayed the protagonists in the original production of Gershwin's opera, have not appeared elsewhere and offer invaluable insights into the composer and his work. One can always quarrel about selections. Although Gershwin's own published articles are well represented, it seems curious that his contribution to a major book, Henry Cowell's American Composers on American Music: A Symposium (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1933), does not appear in George Gershwin Reader. While that contribution, The Relation of Jazz to American Music, is a mere two paragraphs in length, and largely reiterates what Gershwin wrote elsewhere about this subject, its inclusion by Cowell in a book dedicated to American art music-a book in which radical modernist figures like Cowell himself, Charles Ives, Nicolas Slonimsky, and Wallingfbrd Riegger 6gure prominently -was a historically important milestone in the reception history of Gershwin's music. Also striking is the absence of anything written about Gershwin by his teacher Edward Kilenyi. …