George on My Mind

Though he dropped out of school in 1914 to become a pianist and song-plugger in Tin Pan Alley, George Gershwin never forgot about writing serious music.

His one-movement piece for string quartet, “Lullaby,” was penned when he was 21, the same year as his hit song “Swanee.”

“Swanee” sold more than a million sheet music copies and eventually 2.25 million records, which would make it a double-platinum release today.

“Lullaby” stayed on the shelf.

Gershwin, who is being honored around the nation this week with concerts celebrating the centennial of his birth Sept. 26, always had the public on his side. But it took half a century for the mighty Metropolitan Opera to program his magnum opus, “Porgy and Bess.”

In his day, Gershwin wasn’t considered “high art.”

Even the epochal “Rhapsody in Blue”--which has energized the concert hall since its premiere in 1924--had its detractors, who considered jazz “low-class” music.

“Porgy and Bess,” premiered in 1935, actually received denunciations that verged on outright racism.

Ironically, it’s these serious works--along with individual songs that have become jazz/pop standards--that keep Gershwin’s music alive. His classical scores sound fresh even though they are played constantly by symphony orchestras around the world.

It’s not just an impressive tale of jazzer goes legit; it’s the story of a composer who changed the face of popular and classical music alike and redefined ideas of what concert music should be.

Gershwin was born in Brooklyn and grew up in a poor Jewish neighborhood. His real name was Jacob Gershvin, the family name adapted by his Russian immigrant father from the original Gershovitz.

He taught himself to play piano when he was 12 and was soon studying the music of Chopin, Liszt and Debussy.

In 1922, he wrote “Blue Monday Blues,” a one-act “jazz-opera,” that anticipated “Porgy and Bess.” A year later, bandleader Paul Whiteman commissioned “Rhapsody” for his jazz band (and piano).

Other serious commissions followed, but few of them had the success of “Rhapsody.”

His opera, “Porgy,” was especially problematic, and he never lived to see it triumph.

Meanwhile, he made his living writing musicals and movie scores and was at work on the film “Goldwyn Follies” when he began having dizzy spells.

A month later, he died undergoing an operation for a brain tumor. He was 38.

Since his death, Gershwin’s works have become such standards of classical repertoire that they’ve undergone changes in interpretation, just like Beethoven and Brahms have. Major orchestra conductors have tended to broaden and sweeten the music, making it more grand, slow, Tchaikovskian.

Just as Leopold Stokowski’s similar romanticized versions of Bach generated strong reactions, so have these.

In 1976, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas made a historic recording for Columbia records with a pair of 1925 Duo-Art piano rolls that reproduced Gershwin’s own playing of “Rhapsody.” The results are startling; the music is fast, peppy, full of ‘20s gin and hooch.

Oboist-conductor Mitch Miller drew on markings he made in the scores when he played on Gershwin’s 1934 American tour and in the original production of “Porgy” to conduct a recording of “Rhapsody” and other works in 1988.

At 18 minutes long, however, Miller’s version of “Rhapsody” sounds quite leisurely and loose.

Marcus Roberts, who plays “Rhapsody” today and Friday with the Pacific Symphony, made a compact disc version in 1996 that attempts to restore the improvisatory tradition of jazz to the music.

So his recording incorporates new material and lasts almost 10 minutes longer than the David Golub-Mitch Miller version and about 16 minutes longer than the piano-roll version.

Which is the real “Rhapsody”? Is there a “real” “Rhapsody”? Like all great music, “Rhapsody” is open to interpretation and reinterpretation by the finest orchestras, which goes to show how vital a part Gershwin plays in classical music today.

CATCH GERSHWIN

* Carl St.Clair directs the Pacific Symphony in Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue,” with pianist Marcus Roberts. Today and Friday at 8 p.m. Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. Program includes Richard Danielpour’s “Celestial Night” and Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. $17-$48. (714) 556-2787.

* The South Shores Quintet performs music by Schumann, Gershwin and Dohnanyi. Today at noon. Fine Arts Room 101 at Saddleback College, 28000 Marguerite Parkway, Mission Viejo. Free. (949) 582-4747.

* “For the Love of Music.” Pianist Bill Protzmann presents a salute to Gershwin. Saturday at 8 p.m. Concert Hall at UCI. Free. (949) 824-2787.

* The Great American Music Company celebrates the music of Gershwin with Stephanie Haynes, Dewey Erney and Jack Prather. Saturday at 8 p.m. Richard and Karen Carpenter Performing Arts Center, Cal State Long Beach, 6200 Atherton St. $21-$27. Parking is $3. (562) 985-7000.