A Dated Gershwin?
Don Heckman roundly applauds Marcus Roberts for removing “Rhapsody in Blue” “from its usual dated context” (“Roberts Uncovers New Dimension to ‘Rhapsody in Blue,’ ” Calendar, Sept. 30). Is this dated as in how Chopin is dated? How about that Perry Como version of the Polonaise in A-flat, and that bonus lyric “Till the End of Time”?
The Roberts rendition of this landmark composition meanders and wanders about cutely, but hardly gives the piece “a vigorous new future.”
A new version of “Sunset Boulevard” with an added subplot of how the chimp died would be amusing for a while, but eventually we’d get back to the real thing.
No one can know for sure whether “Gershwin surely would have loved it,” but for a composer who determinedly cleared the piano bench of other players whenever he arrived at a party, I think that pronouncement is also highly suspect.
STEVE SCHMIDT
Westwood
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