Before you read the text

1. Practise aloud.

innovate – innovation, music – musical, invent – invention, improve – improvement, inspire – inspiration, contribute – contribution, introduce – introduction, publish – publisher, serve – service; identify – identifiable, origin – original, Cuba – Cuban, success – successful, note – notable, infection – infectious, die – dead; ful – fully, poetical – poetically, relative – relatively, undoubted – undoubtedly

2. Pronounce correctly.

hall, idiom, concerto, repertory, rhapsody, equivalent, material, distance, scene, literature, lyrics, figure, satire, opera, coma, novelist; absolute, artistic, spectacular, political, serious, poetical, paradoxical; immigrate, characterize, collapse, diagnose, summarize

3. Read the sentences and translate them paying special attention to the italisized words.

1. The student invented a new method of learning the unknown words. 2. The distinctive feature of his character was joy of living. 3. Gershwin’s parents came from Russia. 4. Gershwin did not marry because he was aware his single passion was music. 5. “The Grand Duke” is indeed the last opera produced in collaboration of Sullivan and Gilbert. 6. Some musicologists discover a plenty of similarities in classical and pop music. 7. For many years music activities in England stood under the influence of the Continent. 8. He had to interrupt his play for a while. 9. In everybody’s life a fortune is followed by a misfortune. 10. Being abroad he experienced homesickness. 11. Gershwin’s attitude towards young musicians was probably always one and the same: he tried to help everybody. 12. Even brilliant singers and dancers can not save some dull musicals from failure.

4. Look through text A and tell a few words about it contents.

5. Read text A carefully.

Text a george gershwin

This American composer had a foot in two camps: pop music and concert music. He innovated in both, writing songs and Broadway musicals which not only define the 20s and 30s but break paths which would be fully exploited only later. For the concert hall, he invented a distinctive and immediately identifiable idiom with the poetically named “Rhapsody in Blue” (1924) and “Piano Concerto in F” (1925). Almost every one of his concert works has entered the repertory. In this regard, he is the American equivalent of Verdi. People with no interest in opera hum parts of his “Porgy and Bess” (1935) without knowing where the material comes from.

He showed an absolute passion to improve his work. He managed to travel a great artistic distance from the relatively simple tunes of “Rhapsody in Blue” to the complicated pieces such as his symphonic poem “An American in Paris” (1928), “Cuban Overture” (1932) and many scenes in “Porgy and Bess”.

Much has made of his debt to African-American music, and it is indeed a major source of his inspiration, but it is not the only one. Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy, Pyotr Tchaikovsky and even Jewish chant also contributed to his (paradoxically) quite original music.

George Gershwin (named Jacob Gershowitz at his birth September 26, 1898) was the second of four children born to Morris and Rose Gershowitz, Russians who had immigrated to New York. George discovered music at six listening to a piano roll of Rubinstein’s “Melody in F” and was overwhelmed at nine hearing a friend playing the violin. When he was twelve he was given piano lessons. In 1912 he began studying with Charles Hambitzer, undoubtedly the strongest influence on the young student, who introduced him to the music of Debussy and Ravel, the early works of Arnold Schoenberg, and the classical piano literature.

George left school at fifteen to join music publisher Jerome K. Remick as Tin Pan Alley’s youngest song-plugger for 15 dollars a week all the while trying his hand at composition. His first published song (in 1916) was “When You Want Em You Can’t Get Em”. Then George was hired to write songs for Max Dreyfus, head of the publishing house T.B. Harms.

Gershwin’s first Broadway show “La, La, Lucille” ran for one hundred performances in 1919. His next song “Swanee” was a tremendous hit and Gershwin was well on his way to fame and fortune.

Together with his brother Ira (who wrote lyrics) George wrote successful musicals during the twenties for many notable figures of the American musical stage. Most of these musicals were characterized by inane plots which served only as vehicles for spectacular singing and dancing, but by 1930 both George and Ira had become interested in using satire in their musicals. “Strike up the Band” and “Girl Crazy” contain some of Gershwin’s most infectious melodies.

“Of Thee I Sing”, a brilliant political satire, became in 1932 the first musical to win the Pulitzer Prize. However, by this time Gershwin’s interest in serious music had increased and he wanted to write the full-length opera. Such opera, “Porgy and Bess”, was written and first performed in 1935 in Boston. It is a three-act folk opera (libretto by his brother, Ira, adapted from Du-Bose Heyward’s play “Porgy”). The music features styles of the blues, jazz and Negro spirituals.

Early in 1937 Gershwin began to experience headaches, dizziness and blackouts. On July 9 he collapsed into a coma, and a brain tumour was diagnosed. Despite of all attempts to save him George Gershwin never woke up from his coma and died on July 11, 1937, short before his 39th birthday. Novelist John O’Hara summarized the attitude of many Americans who refused to believe Gershwin was dead when he said, “I don’t have to believe it if I don’t want to”.

Proper Names

George Gershwin [’GLG ’gWSwin]

“Porgy and Bess” [’pLgi qnd ’bes]

Claude Debussy [’klOd dq‘bu’si]

Arthur Rubinstein [’RTq ’rHbin’stQin]

Charles Hambitzer [’tSRlz ’hxmbitsq]

Jerome K. Remick [Gq’roum ’kei ’remik]

Tin Pan Alley[’tin ’pxn ’xli] – Тин-Пэн-Элли /букв. Улица луженых

кастрюль/ – район в Нью-Йорке, где находились музыкальные

издательства и студии музыкальной записи

“When You Want Em You Can’t Get Em” – “Что хочу – не получаю, получивши – не хочу”

“Swanee” [’swOni]– “Лебединная река”

Ira Gershwin [’Qirq...]

“Strike up the Band!” – “Пусть грянет оркестр!”

“Girl Crazy” – “Повеса”

“Of Thee I Sing” – “Пою о тебе”

the Pulitzer Prize […’pAlitsq…]

John O’Hara [’GOn ou’hRrq]

Du-Bose Heyward [djH ’bouz ’heiwqd]