The Library's Music Division celebrated the March 17 opening of the new George and Ira Gershwin Room -- located across the hall from the Jefferson Building's Coolidge Auditorium -- with a March 13-16 event that explored "The Gershwins and Their World."
Ira and George Gershwin
With songs, dances, lectures and panel discussions by personal friends of the Gershwins, musicians, performers and scholars of their music, George (1898-1937) and Ira Gershwin (1896-1983) lived again for the participants and audience of some 300 people.
In his opening remarks, Jon Newsom, chief of the Music Division, explained how the almost 60-year-long association between the Library of Congress and the Gershwin family began in 1939: "Harold Spivacke, chief of the Music Division from 1937 to 1972, developed a strong friendship with Ira and Leonore [his wife]. Out of the warm personal ties of this friendship we have seen the growth of an institution within the Library that has fostered the building of our collections and the expansion of our public programs in unprecedented ways, consistent with the broad vision of Ira and George. It was during Harold Spivacke's tenure at the Library that many of the great treasures in the Gershwin Collection came to us, and not only from Ira and Leonore, but from other family members, including George's sister, Frances Gershwin Godowsky."
The George and Ira Gershwin Room is a permanent exhibition area for materials from the Library's George and Ira Gershwin Collection, which includes George's piano and desk, Ira's typing table and typewriter, self-portrait oil paintings of each brother, as well as music manuscripts and other documents that chronicle the lives and careers of the two brothers. An interactive audio-video kiosk allows visitors to view film footage and additional materials from the Gershwin Collection and hear recordings of Gershwin music - James Scherlis
Mr. Newsom also thanked Librarian Emeritus Daniel J. Boorstin and other members of the extended Gershwin family who have supported the Library's Gershwin programs and the creation of the Gershwin Room. In the audience were English Strunsky (trustee of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts) and wife Lucy; son Michael Strunsky (also a trustee) and wife Jean; and Leopold Godowsky III (son of Frances Gershwin). Mr. Newsom also acknowledged Rose Gershwin (George and Ira's mother); Arthur (brother of George and Ira) and wife Judy; Marc George Gershwin (their son); and Elaine Godowsky, wife of Leopold.
"This was my Aunt Lee's dream," said Michael Strunsky, using Leonore's nickname. "The American people will now get to see things [in the newly opened Gershwin Room] that have been mostly family possessions. It's a more-than-moving experience to see her dream come to fruition."
For the rest of that evening and the next three days -- which began at 9:30 each morning and did not conclude before 10 at night -- conference participants discussed, dissected, reminisced about and performed songs from the world that the Gershwins knew in the early years of the 20th century.
It was the kind of gathering in which a panelist on stage, groping for the name of a performer, composer or song, might ask the audience for help, and inevitably someone would call out the answer from somewhere in the hall. Many of the members of the audience, who came from all over the country, knew each other or knew of each other's work, and before the weekend was over, many more connections were made among friends, collectors, musicians and scholars of this uniquely creative period in American music.
"I wanted it to be a congenial group," said Robert Kimball, organizer of the conference with Elizabeth Auman, donor relations officer in the Library's Music Division. People got to know each other, he added, "and there was a wonderful spirit to it all." In his opening remarks, he said that he hoped a publication would come out of the symposium. Mr. Kimball is artistic adviser to the Gershwin Trusts, special consultant on musical theater to the Music Division and the author of two books about the Gershwins.
Enjoying the Friday night reception in the Great Hall are (from right) Lucy Strunsky, wife of English (brother of Ira Gershwin's wife, Leonore); their son Michael; and Michael's daughter Lara-Joelle; and friend Steve Denison. - James Scherlis
A Friday evening panel introduced the Gershwins and their world. Moderated by Wayne Shirley, music specialist in the Music Division, the group discussed the resources available to study the Gershwins and their music. Panelists Raymond White, curator of the Gershwin Collection in the Music Division, and Mark Horowitz, music specialist in the Music Division, talked about the kinds of Gershwin materials that can be found in the Library as well as those of contemporaneous composers and lyricists such as Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Vincent Youmans, Richard Rodgers, Vernon Duke, Irving Berlin and Burton Lane.
Mark Trent Goldberg, executive director of the Ira and Leonore Gershwin Trusts in Beverly Hills, described the trusts' holdings, which range from programs, awards, photographs and recordings to royalty statements, furniture and artwork by both George and Ira Gershwin. "Eventually the two collections will be merged," said Goldberg. "It's like a giant jigsaw puzzle." He remarked that sometimes they are missing pieces, but "we are able to find out a little bit more about their lives every day. We never know what's around the corner."
Frequent Gershwin performer Michael Feinstein (below, photo by James Scherlis) added his personal reminiscences about working with Ira Gershwin and cataloging the Gershwin sound recordings during the last years of Ira's life. "Ira was the most self-effacing man I ever met; I would have to pull stories out of him," he said. Mr. Feinstein told about putting on an old recording for Ira to hear one day, and how, after a time, Ira turned to him with a look of surprise and, patting himself on the back, said, "Very good, Gershwin!"
Each morning of the symposium opened with live performances of music. Robert Kimball said this was a conscious decision: "I thought it was important to begin the mornings with music to set the mood."
Mr. Feinstein drew the first slot, on Saturday at 9:30, which he good-naturedly referred to as "the shower hour." He began by playing and singing "'S Wonderful." The Gershwin song set the tone not only for the day, but for the rest of the symposium. He also played songs by other composers and lyricists of the time: Johnny Green, Irving Caesar, Yip Harburg, Vernon Duke and Oscar Levant.
A panel of individuals who knew the two brothers personally shared Gershwin memories: Mr. Feinstein; actress Angie Dickinson, who spent a great deal of time with Ira and Leonore; composer and conductor David Raksin, who as a young man was helped by George; and Leonore's brother, English. The panelists, along with others during the symposium, stressed how much George enjoyed working with young people and assisting them in any way he could.
Ms. Dickinson reminisced about the marathon poker games that Ira presided over at his home on North Roxbury Drive in Beverly Hills (familiarly referred to as "the plantation"). "Ira played because he enjoyed the camaraderie; he enjoyed losing, not winning." She also talked about (seconded by others during the weekend) how Ira would never say anything bad about anyone, concluding "maybe that's why he was so quiet."
Max Morath, entertainer and re-creator of the musical world of the early 20th century, played and sang the music of Kay Swift and some of the Gershwins' Tin Pan Alley predecessors. - James Scherlis
English Strunsky, in discussing how much a part of American culture George and Ira's songs are even today, told the story of standing in line with his wife recently to get tickets to the Woody Allen film "Mighty Aphrodite." He asked his wife, "Is it 'Aphro-dyeti' or 'Aphro-ditti'?" Before she could respond, the woman behind them, who had overhead the question, shrugged her shoulders and said, "To-may-toes, to-mah-toes," referring to the 1937 Gershwin classic "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off."
Mary Henderson, historian of American theater, discussed Broadway's "golden age" during the '20s, when some years would see the opening of more than 250 new shows in 80 theaters. Pianist and music historian Artis Wodehouse demonstrated and explained the importance of piano roll recordings in the early 20th century. George Gershwin made 140 piano rolls between 1915 and 1925, when he was getting his start as a musician; many of them show how he was influenced by the rhythms and cadences of black and Spanish music.
A highlight of the Saturday afternoon session was the appearance of Anne Wiggins Brown, who played "Bess" in the original 1935 Broadway production of the Gershwins' opera Porgy and Bess. She talked about her audition for George and what it was like to work with Todd Duncan, her co-star in the opera. She also remembered the rather painful experience of traveling with the opera to Washington's whites-only National Theatre. "'I won't sing,'" she said she told Gershwin. "'My parents can't come, my sister, a student at Howard University, can't come, my friends can't come to see me perform.'" Todd Duncan soon joined in her protest, and Gershwin, together with members of the Theatre Guild, persuaded the managers of the National to alter its policy for that one week of the opera's run in Washington. "It was 20 years before the policy was changed for good," she added.
Left, composer David Raksin and actress Angie Dickinson enjoy a laugh during a panel discussion of reminiscences about George and Ira Gershwin; right, Anne Wiggins Brown, the original "Bess" in the Gershwins' 1935 opera Porgy and Bess, talks about her experiences with Robert Kimball, the Library's special consultant on musical theater and co-organizer of the symposium. - James Scherlis
Rounding out the day's sessions were a discussion of the role that orchestrators play in musical arrangements and how restorations of earlier musical shows extend their lives; a performance of "unpublished Gershwin" with pianist Steven Blier and singers from the New York Festival of Song; a discussion of the Gershwins' trip to Europe in 1928 and the influence it had on George's music by Lawrence Stewart, secretary- archivist to Ira; a performance by Marthanne Verbit of piano works by composers George met in Europe; and finally, a discussion and performance of Vernon Duke songs (with whom Ira collaborated) with Kay Duke-Ingalls (Duke's widow), composer Richard Rodney Bennett and singer Mary Cleere Haran.
Sunday morning's musical treat was offered by composer and pianist William Bolcom and his wife, mezzo-soprano Joan Morris. During the day, participants heard discussions of other influences on George's music: classical composers Alban Berg (whom he met in Paris in 1928) and Aaron Copland; and early vaudeville and musical theater shows. Also discussed were the influences by and on both Ira and George of composers and librettists of the era such as Jerome Kern, Vernon Duke, George S. Kaufman, Irving Berlin, Harold Arlen, Guy Bolton, P.G. Wodehouse and Vincent Youmans, who was born one day after George.
Michael Tilson Thomas (left, photo by James Scherlis), music director of the San Francisco Symphony, whose family was close to the Gershwins all their lives, spoke about the influences of the New York Yiddish theater (primarily in 1906-1916) on the Gershwins and their music. Mr. Thomas noted that the Gershwins and many of their talented contemporaries were children of immigrant Russian Jews and that, according to Mr. Thomas, their music "reflects the collaboration and confrontation between the rebbe [rabbi] and the cantor" in Jewish services.
Music ended the second full day of the conference, with selections from "The Ira Revues" before the dinner break, followed later by a rousing performance of "Great Day" by Vincent Youmans with Aaron Gandy, other soloists and the Howard University choir in the evening.
David Elders and Amanda Walkins, backed by the Howard University choir, perform in a concert version of Vincent Youmans's Great Day. - James Scherlis
Still more facets of the Gershwins and "their world" were explored during the final day of the symposium, beginning again with music, this time by some of George's keyboard colleagues, James P. Johnson, Lucky Roberts, Roy Bargy, Zez Confrey and Bix Beiderbecke with Dick Hyman at the piano. Edward Jablonski, longtime friend of Ira and author of several books on the Gershwins, treated the audience to the voices of George and Ira and the sounds of George's piano playing from old recordings, and collectors and dealers talked about today's market for "Gershwiniana." Philip Furia discussed "the poets of Tin Pan Alley," and composer Ned Rorem read from his book about "the world of George Gershwin." Other musical offerings came from pianist Alicia Zizzo (George's "small piano works") and singer-performer Max Morath (the Gershwins' Tin Pan Alley predecessors).
The day and the conference concluded with a tribute to Kay Swift, who was a close friend, colleague and champion of George and his music. A composer herself, she cataloged George's unpublished songs and his unlyricized melodies and worked closely with George and Ira for many years.
According to Mr. Raksin, "George's and Ira's songs are the apex of American songwriting and will resonate for years to come."
