Gershwin: Oh, Kay! Overture

This release of five new titles in the American Classics series is devoted to the music of George Gershwin.

Arguably the best-known of all 20th-century composers, George Gershwin's music encompasses with equal skill both the classical and popular genres. He was born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New York City, in September 1898 to immigrant Jewish parents. He died at the early age of 38 from a tumour in the brain.

Gershwin started to show an interest in music from about the age of ten and, although receiving some piano tutelage, was largely self-taught in composition. It was only later in his career that he received some formal instruction in composition.

Gershwin's first employment was as a song plugger for a New York music publishing company. His first song was published in 1916 and a year later he had his first commercial successes with the rag Rialto Ripples. This was followed, in 1919, by his first big international hit, Swanee. Now established as a successful composer of popular songs, between 1919 and 1933, Gershwin produced, in collaboration with his elder brother Ira, some of the most successful Broadway musicals.

In 1924 he was commissioned by the band leader, Paul Whiteman, to produce what was to be his first 'serious' composition, the Rhapsody in Blue. This was followed a year later by the Piano Concerto in F and, in 1928, by An American in Paris. His opera Porgy and Bess was first performed on Broadway in 1935.

These five releases present a comprehensive view of Gershwin's music from the Three Preludes for solo piano to the Piano Concerto, taking in a good selection of the show songs and improvisations.

An unparalleled collection of many of Gershwin's most popular pieces from Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris to a collection of songs and overtures and a complete recording of Gershwin's only full-length opera Porgy and Bess.

Many of the orchestras and artists in this set are internationallyacclaimed names whne it comes to the music of Gershwin - from Katia and Marielle Labèque and Barbara Hendricks, to Arthur Fielder and the Boston Pops; Lorin Maazel's complete recording of Porgy and Bess from Cleveland has been a classic of the gramophone since it was released in 1976.

"This superb recording with Cleveland forces conducted by Maazel establishes the work's formidable status beyond question ... the recording is one of the most vivid that even Decca has produced" The Penguin Guide

This set brings together the five complete recordings of famous Broadway musicals made under the direction of the American conductor and musical theatre archivist John McGlinn – Show Boat (1927) by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cole Porter’s Anything Goes (1934), Irving Berlin’s Annie Get Your Gun (1946), Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon (1947) and Porter’s Kiss Me, Kate (1948). The Show Boat recording also contains a substantial amount of extra material cut from the original production before opening or written for subsequent revivals and the 1936 film.