More significant than otherwise would have been the case, and without becoming unnaturally 'high brow' or slavishly imitative.

He did not imitate these masters, but naturally absorbed what he wanted of their expression, in a way to make his own richer and He naturally grafted upon his own Broadway style harmonies and progressions he had heard in the works of classic masters. In the second place, while he never was an intellectual composer, he had an extraordinary musical instinct and capacity for assimilation. But Gershwin, in the first place, had the popular ear. Gilbert, John Alden Carpenter and Aaron Copland of the younger generation had employed jazz motives in ways of their own in symphonies and symphonic Serious American composers such as Henry F. Gershwin was not the first to realize these possibilities. It remains that the composer of the 'Rhapsody in Blue' and certain other representative compositions gave jazz itselfĪ new importance and consideration as a musical medium, and proved that significant creation was possible in the terms of this popular national idiom. In some respects, and partly by virtue of the immense amount of publicity he received, his value may have been exaggerated. Which raised him in less than five years from the rank of a song plugger in Tin Pan Alley to that of a composer whose works invaded symphony concert programs and operatic auditoriums and made him internationally famous. George Gershwin had a unique position in American music, one due in part to his wholly exceptional gifts and in part to a special set of circumstances Gershwin Caused New Jazz Values By OLIN DOWNES

George gershwin music compositions