Do good things really come in threes? The best proof might well be the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra’s season opener, a program dubbed George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. But that familiar work isn’t the only piano music that you’ll hear during this concert.
Two other pieces, jazz legend Duke Ellington’s New World A-Comin’ and Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G Major will also highlight the evening. Three extraordinary pianists—Dan Tepfer,
Thomas Enhco and Mathis Picard—will perform, although who will play what had not been announced at press time.
Gershwin’s jazz-infused masterpiece made its debut in 1924 in New York City as part of a concert entitled An Experiment in Modern Music. The solo—partially improvised and performed by the composer himself—was applauded by the audience but dismissed by many
critics, who argued that it was jazz masquerading as classical.
“Gershwin was aware of what he was doing, and he really didn’t give a damn what people thought,” said Joseph Horowitz, author of Classical Music in America: A History of its Rise and Fall, during an interview with NPR on the 100th anniversary of the work. “He wanted to bridge musical worlds that were separate.”
Ellington’s hope-filled rhapsody takes its name from a noted book about Harlem in the 1920s and 1930s. Ravel, associated popularly with Impressionism, premiered his concerto, one of only two he wrote, in 1932.
Rather than playing the pieces back-to-back, OPO—under the baton of Eric Jacobsen, music director—will weave the four movements of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka in between the three piano concertos, with dancers escorting each pianist on and off the stage.
