| Title | : | George Gershwin: His Life and Work |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0520248643 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780520248649 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 884 |
| Publication | : | First published December 1, 2006 |
Pollack’s lively narrative describes Gershwin’s family, childhood, and education; his early career as a pianist; his friendships and romantic life; his relation to various musical trends; his writings on music; his working methods; and his tragic death at the age of 38. Unlike Kern, Berlin, and Porter, who mostly worked within the confines of Broadway and Hollywood, Gershwin actively sought to cross the boundaries between high and low, and wrote works that crossed over into a realm where art music, jazz, and Broadway met and merged. The author surveys Gershwin’s entire oeuvre, from his first surviving compositions to the melodies that his brother and principal collaborator, Ira Gershwin, lyricized after his death. Pollack concludes with an exploration of the performances and critical reception of Gershwin's music over the years, from his time to ours.
George Gershwin: His Life and Work Reviews
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This book needs two ratings. For the inexhaustible academic work it is, it deserves five stars. Pollack does an amazing job in not only chronicling Gershwin's life but analyzing all of the composer's works. The biography is close to 900 pages with slightly less than 200 of that being notes and index. There is not one stone unturned in Gershwin's life and there is some fascinating information on the supporting cast, like James Reese Europe, Eubie Blake, Paul Whiteman etc, as well. These little side notes bring some humanity to the composer. For example, Oscar Levant's question to George Gershwin after the composer addressed his adoring public; "If you had your life to live all over again, would you still fall in love with yourself?" But the focus is on Gershwin and any scholar of his music would agree this is the definitive biography.
However, the rating for readability would have be lower; maybe three stars. It isn't because it is bad writing. In fact, Pollack is quite good. But he is a bit dry. The book soon becomes a "And then he wrote" or "And then he met". It's hard to see anyone but a true Gershwin fan wading through this epic tome. There are some excellent chapters especially the several on "Porgy and Bess" but overall it is just too much information for the average reader.
These two considerations, readability and research, can be bridged. I recently read an excellent biography on Thelonious Monk that was both highly detailed and highly readable but Pollack doesn't quite achieve the balance.
So three stars for readability. Five stars for academic excellence. Let's split the difference and call it four stars. -
As a lover of Gershwin’s musicals and his instrumental compositions, I read this book to learn more about his life. The first couple of hundred pages are a well written biography. The other 2/3 of the book are an exhaustive summary of all his works and their first performances.
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Howard Pollack's enormous biography of American composer George Gershwin and his work might be better termed an encyclopedia: it not only dives into the composer's life, but also lists the history of his numerous songs, compositions and shows, complete with synopses, cast lists and four whole chapters (nearly 100 pages) devoted to the monumental Porgy and Bess. Having read almost every Gershwin biography to date, I can attest that Mr. Pollack's is both the most exhaustive and the least readable. It's a work of great significance and yet I would hardly recommend it to anyone but the most devoted Gershwin fan. Someone with a smattering of musicology would also be a plus, since Mr. Pollack isn't afraid to dive into the technical aspects of Gershwin's music, comparing individual pieces to other works in the Gershwin canon and Gershwin's contemporaries.
A more accurate title for the book would have been "George Gershwin: His Life, His Work and His Times", since part of Mr. Pollack's impressive research includes biographies of ragtime, Tin Pan Alley, W.C.Handy, Joseph Schellinger and pretty much anyone Gershwin ever breathed on. This means that he's unearthed more then a few treasures, including plotlines to some obscure Gershwin musicals, like Tip Toes or Tell Me More; on the other hand, he isn't shy about taking up a page listing the names of all the people who ever recorded Porgy and Bess. Make no mistake, this book was a labor of the most intense sort of love. Mr. Pollack has hunted down everything and anything even remotely Gershwin related, bringing to light intriguing facts like how the Lufttwafte petitioned Hitler to be allowed to listen to Rhapsody in Blue or the fact that Joseph McCarthy labelled Gershwin's music "subversive".
As a biography of the work, Mr, Pollack's tome is unparalleled; but as a biography of the man himself, he falls rather flat. Dividing the book between Gershwin's "life" and "work", Mr. Pollack spends only 200 pages on Gershwin himself and another 500 on Gershwin's musical output. Many biographers have a vague "thesis" about their subject (like Goff's Robert Todd Lincoln: A Man in his Own Right), but Mr. Pollack seems happy to summarize other people's opinions. He makes opinions about those opinions but few about Gershwin himself, at least until the Conclusion, where it becomes clear he hopes to disparage those who say Gershwin was "unschooled".
Perhaps Mr. Pollack knew that when it comes to Gershwin's life, he was going where so many others have gone before; yet he had such definitive opinions about some of those biographers (he definitely didn't care for Joan Peyser's gossipy bio which, among other things, championed the rumors of Gershwin's illigitimate son). It's disappointing, then, that Mr. Pollack didn't spend more time trying on Gershwin's biographical details: he might have shown insight unseen elsewhere. Equally disappointing is his structure: his biography is thematic rather then chronological, with chapters divided as "Gershwin the Man", "Gershwin Among his Friends" etc. This destroys any chance of there being a narrative thread; if anything, the book feels like a series of essays rather then a completed whole.
Mr. Pollack's book is a spectacular achievement; but as mentioned, I think it's future will be either as a reference book for Gershwin scholars or a coda for Gershwin fans who have read everything else (like me). I should confess a slight bias: Gershwin's personal history has always been just as interesting to me as his professional one and given Mr. Pollack's focus, I was probably fated to disappointment from Page One. Not everyone likes to mix the art with the artist, after all, and I can't really fault Mr. Pollack for the sheer excitement he brings to discussing the technical brilliance of Rhapsody in Blue. Given how excited I get talking about George Gershwin, it's nice to know there are others equally obsessed. -
I read my first Gershwin biography when I was in my late teens.
I guess whenever you totally revere someone, there's always a risk of being a little disillusioned when you read an honest biography about them. I had always regarded Gershwin as someting of a superhuman being. After reading the book I realized that Gerswhin was a mere human who was in possession of super abilities and talents.
Reading this excellent biography reinforces the idea that Gershwin, while personally imperfect, wrote music that was as perfect as any music ever written.
And I think its fascinating someone so gifted in music would just happen to have a brother (Ira) equally gifted in lyric writing. -
I enjoyed reading about a composer whose music I love. My favorits of his are his short works and love songs, like "Someone to watch over me" and "Our love is here to stay." A lot of composers have short lives. Very strange.
