European performers have cottoned to the fact that Gershwin and Ravel make a good pairing on disc: they knew each other and liked each other's music, and Ravel understood jazz better than any of his contemporaries, with the possible exception of Kurt Weill. The booklet for this German release goes on to sketch out a list of similarities between the two that reads like something out of Ripley's Believe It or Not: they both died of brain diseases in 1937, both were snappy dressers and players who never married, both smoked, ...
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European performers have cottoned to the fact that Gershwin and Ravel make a good pairing on disc: they knew each other and liked each other's music, and Ravel understood jazz better than any of his contemporaries, with the possible exception of Kurt Weill. The booklet for this German release goes on to sketch out a list of similarities between the two that reads like something out of Ripley's Believe It or Not: they both died of brain diseases in 1937, both were snappy dressers and players who never married, both smoked, and so on. Gershwin asked Ravel to take him on as a student, but was turned down with the now-classic question, "You're already a first-rate Gershwin? Why would you want to be a second-rate Ravel?" The Ravel Concerto for the left hand, composed in 1930, is ideal as a counterpoint to Rhapsody in Blue; it may be Ravel's jazziest work, and it similarly relies on sweeping piano figures juxtaposed with busier orchestral passages into which the piano is woven. The two works are separated by...
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Add this copy of An American in Paris / Rhapsody in Blue to cart. $21.09, new condition, Sold by Importcds rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Sunrise, FL, UNITED STATES, published 2008 by Oehms Classics.
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