Gershwin at 80; Part 6

<v Speaker>[instrumental suite plays] <v Radio Host>The next Gershwin movie was the 1932 RKO screen adaptation of "Girl Crazy," <v Radio Host>starring Burt Wheeler and Robert Woolsey. <v Radio Host>Made during a time when musical films were out of fashion, most of the Gershwin songs <v Radio Host>were omitted from what is essentially a pure screen comedy. <v Radio Host>But the brothers did write one new song for Wheeler and his perennial screen mate, <v Radio Host>Dorothy Lee, "You've Got What Gets Me." The third voice during the opening <v Radio Host>dialogue belongs to the screen's favorite brat, Mitzi Green. <v Speaker>[opening dialogue to "You've Got What Gets Me" plays]. <v Speaker> <v Speaker>["You've Got What Gets Me" plays]

<v Radio Host>Composer Kay Swift first met George in 1925, and their close personal

<v Radio Host>relationship allowed her to be present during many of the most critical days of his <v Radio Host>career. <v Miles Krueger>When you met George Gershwin, what was his career like? <v Miles Krueger>Where- where was he in his career? <v Kay Swift>Well, I met him in 25, but very briefly, he was brought to a party in my house by a <v Kay Swift>wonderful cello player. And she said she knew George and she knew Heifetz, <v Kay Swift>I knew Heifetz. So Heifetz and George and Ira <v Kay Swift>and- and Pauline Heifetz, afterwards, Pauline Chotzinhoff, who was a friend <v Kay Swift>of George, not exactly a girlfriend, but uh one that he took out, dated. <v Kay Swift>So fine, so they all came. <v Kay Swift>And that was the first time I met him. And he did play happily. <v Miles Krueger>So he already had behind him uh "Rhapsody in Blue." <v Kay Swift>Oh, yes. <v Miles Krueger>And uh some of his major hit- <v Kay Swift>"Lady Be Good!" <v Miles Krueger>He had "Lady Be Good." <v Kay Swift>Yeah! <v Miles Krueger>And of course "Somebody Loves Me" and-. <v Kay Swift>Yes! <v Miles Krueger>And "Swanee," and so on. <v Kay Swift>"Fascinating Rhythm." <v Miles Krueger>But yet the major bulk of his stage, and of course, his screen career came later. <v Kay Swift>Yes, it did. <v Miles Krueger>And you had the opportunity to watch that happen.

<v Kay Swift>Oh, I did, and- <v Miles Krueger>That must have been very exciting. <v Kay Swift>It was because he was going all the time. And that doesn't mean that his early works <v Kay Swift>don't have the same stamp, the same trademark. <v Kay Swift>Because I think any Gershwin tune doesn't sound like someone else's tune. <v Miles Krueger>Now, George was constantly shifting back and forth between Broadway shows and film scores <v Miles Krueger>and concert pieces. What do you think impelled him to do <v Miles Krueger>certain things at certain times? Obviously, the shows involve a contract with a producer. <v Miles Krueger>So there was always a deadline. But what could inspire him, do you think, to suddenly do <v Miles Krueger>a concert piece as in contrast to another popular song? <v Kay Swift>Well, I think that anyone who is a composer generally keeps a notebook or several <v Kay Swift>notebooks of manuscript paper in uh- perhaps a hardcover <v Kay Swift>book can get at any music store, and you jot down thmes <v Kay Swift>and then you find places you can use them many years later. <v Kay Swift>I found in a- in a notebook of George's that I used to have, and unfortunately sold, <v Kay Swift>because it was necessary. <v Kay Swift>But it was a very early one. And in the early 20s I found, just <v Kay Swift>a few bars that later were used in "Let 'Em Eat Cake," if one

<v Kay Swift>can believe such a thing. <v Miles Krueger>1933. <v Kay Swift>Yes. <v Miles Krueger>How did he accept growth and change in his <v Miles Krueger>career? I mean, did he call you up one day and say something fantastic has happened, I've <v Miles Krueger>just discovered this or that, or could you just see it in a very subtle way that one <v Miles Krueger>work was more distinguished than an earlier one or- how did it happen? <v Kay Swift>Well, he was always enthusiastic about something. <v Kay Swift>Always when I would talk to him. So he'd say a very interesting thing happened. <v Kay Swift>I heard some music by ?inaudible?, who was a classical composer, <v Kay Swift>as you know, and uh various other works, or <v Kay Swift>I understand there's a wonderful show by Noel Coward or by Cole Porter. <v Kay Swift>And we'd go to it and buy the score and bring it back and he'd play it. <v Kay Swift>So he was always eager and enthusiastic. <v Kay Swift>And as new things came his way, such as the lessons that he took eventually with <v Kay Swift>Schillinger, which were very complicated, which I attended with him and just sat <v Kay Swift>and listened to him, very interesting. <v Kay Swift>And which really saved an enormous amount of trouble and gave a lot

<v Kay Swift>of trouble. But it also saved a lot because Schillinger was like a musical <v Kay Swift>business manager. Let us suppose you needed someone to look after your bills and <v Kay Swift>checkbook. And uh he would say, said a business manager <v Kay Swift>not Shillinger would say, well, I think you could save money by going to another market <v Kay Swift>or by doing this and doing that. <v Kay Swift>And Shillinger could make a rather short musical theme that you had <v Kay Swift>open up and become all sorts of other themes. <v Kay Swift>So you had more material than you thought, you had. <v Miles Krueger>Now in what way did he do that? <v Miles Krueger>I understand there's a relationship between Schillinger and mathematics that I find <v Miles Krueger>fascinating and [laughs] but I don't understand it quite well enough to know what <v Miles Krueger>I'm fascinated about. <v Kay Swift>Well-. <v Miles Krueger>Maybe you could explain? <v Kay Swift>I was never any good at mathematics, but I was interested <v Kay Swift>in seeing and had heard before that bits and pieces of themes <v Kay Swift>taken perhaps in reverse so that instead of 3 or 4 ascending <v Kay Swift>notes, that could be 3 or 4 descending notes with the same relation 1 to another <v Kay Swift>and all that sort of thing. And many, many uh

<v Kay Swift>transformations of the same theme into different bits and <v Kay Swift>separating them into different values of note. <v Miles Krueger>In a sense, it's like taking all of the permutations of a given combination of notes. <v Kay Swift>Yes. <v Miles Krueger>And varying them. <v Kay Swift>Yes. <v Miles Krueger>To see how many combinations you get-. <v Kay Swift>It's like looking through a kaleidoscope, the pieces of dust can fall and just the same <v Kay Swift>number of pieces of dust and colors, but they can fall into so many different shapes <v Kay Swift>that it's very similar. <v Miles Krueger>How did that influence George in writing uh let's say the melody lines of his popular <v Miles Krueger>songs? Or was it mostly an influence that affected his classical work? <v Kay Swift>That's a very hard thing to say. I don't believe I could say, but I <v Kay Swift>think that it is safe to say that Porgy and Bess was far more interesting and more <v Kay Swift>intricate and far more valuable as a result of his <v Kay Swift>thinking in different ways to use the themes. <v Kay Swift>And the counterpoint that he was then able to do, although he had studied before, but <v Kay Swift>?Cole Markstein? teachin' and so forth and composer, and he- <v Kay Swift>he was always interested in any way that could enlarge his horizon.

<v Miles Krueger>Was he very dismayed by the commercial failure at first of Porgy and Bess? <v Kay Swift>No, I don't think he was at all, because it accomplished so much what he wanted <v Kay Swift>artistically, that uh, I don't think he- I've been asked this often, I don't think <v Kay Swift>he felt bitter disappointment. Oh, man, isn't this horrible. <v Kay Swift>He didn't. He didn't. <v Kay Swift>I was always much more anxious for him than he was actually for himself, you know. <v Radio Host>By 1934, the stage was set for George Gershwin's most ambitious work, <v Radio Host>the opera version of the 1927 DuBose and Dorothy Haywood play "Porgy," which <v Radio Host>had been originally staged for the Theater Guild by Rouben Mamoulian. <v Radio Host>Riding the crest of his brilliant theater and film career, Mamoulian was the natural <v Radio Host>choice to direct the opera. <v Radio Host>In his Beverly Hills home, Rubin Mamoulian. <v Miles Krueger>Because "Porgy" was your first play on Broadway, I imagine that you must <v Miles Krueger>have felt a certain apprehension when you learned that it was going to be turned into a <v Miles Krueger>musical or actually an opera.

<v Miles Krueger>How did you feel about that when you learned of it? <v Rouben Mamoulian>Well, I felt rather ambivalent about it. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And I certainly did feel a great deal of apprehension because <v Rouben Mamoulian>of the original "Porgy" as a play. <v Rouben Mamoulian>You know, I- I did a totally stylized production of it with <v Rouben Mamoulian>a lot of spirituals in it. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And as you know, it was a great success both artistically and commercially. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And what- you remind me now of the most wonderful comment, which comes to my mind, is <v Rouben Mamoulian>Maurice Ravel, the great Ravel, saw it and his comment on <v Rouben Mamoulian>it was that's the dramatic play I'm talking about. <v Rouben Mamoulian>His comment was it's the best opera he'd ever seen. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So the man had a prophetic vision of what its future would be. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And sure enough, 7 years here later, they called me up from New York and George <v Rouben Mamoulian>had written or was working on the score. <v Rouben Mamoulian>It was going to be a musical. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And at first, um I was full of apprehension about it because I felt <v Rouben Mamoulian>the play was so pure and so integrated in form,

<v Rouben Mamoulian>in- in dialog and action, that it stood by itself completely on <v Rouben Mamoulian>its own feet. And I was wondering how the music would get in there, what <v Rouben Mamoulian>it would do. And yet my second thought was that if anybody <v Rouben Mamoulian>were to put it to music, that there could be no better man than George Gershwin, <v Rouben Mamoulian>whom I knew as a musician, so the- the idea of this <v Rouben Mamoulian>struck me, and now I loved the subject anyway, and that was the only <v Rouben Mamoulian>time in- in my career, as it were, that <v Rouben Mamoulian>I agreed to direct it before I ever heard a single note of his score. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So then I went to New York, and met George and Ira <v Rouben Mamoulian>in their apartment, gave me an audition of the whole thing. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Was a rather unforgettable evening. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Because we were all nervous. I was terribly nervous as to what I was going to hear, <v Rouben Mamoulian>although I expected the best and the 2 brothers were rather nervous.

<v Rouben Mamoulian>So they gave me a highball, put me in an armchair, and <v Rouben Mamoulian>George sat at the piano and Ira stood behind him like a <v Rouben Mamoulian>kind of guardian angel. You know, he loved his brother. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And George was about to start. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And before he hit the keys, he lifted his hands again and turned to me. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And he said, you know, this is very difficult to play. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Said that this- this music is so complicated. <v Rouben Mamoulian>He says, "Well, you know, it's- it's really like Richard Wagner. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Can you play Wagner on the piano?" [laughs] And after that, forward <v Rouben Mamoulian>they started playing. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And of course, the first thing was the, you know, the piano music that <v Rouben Mamoulian>uh-. <v Miles Krueger>Oh the jazz ?inaudible? <v Rouben Mamoulian>The- the black people dancing in a courtyard. <v Rouben Mamoulian>DA dum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And I- I thought it was wonderful. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So then right after that, I jumped up and I said, this is great. <v Rouben Mamoulian>This is- this is wonderful. So they went through the whole audition. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And George finally couldn't resist the temptation and took over the singing from Ira. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So between the 2, they were singing.

<v Rouben Mamoulian>And by the time we got through, they both lost their voices. <v Rouben Mamoulian>For the next 3 days, they could only whisper, but it was a marvelous performance. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Sometimes I think it's the best performance of "Porgy and Bess" I ever heard. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And so we started the rehearsals. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And curiously enough, speaking of that piano music, after several <v Rouben Mamoulian>days of rehearsal, I suddenly had a very strong feeling <v Rouben Mamoulian>that this- this opening was wrong for the opera, because <v Rouben Mamoulian>the dance and this the whole rhythm of it was Harlem. <v Rouben Mamoulian>It was not Charleston. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And right after that came the beautiful "Summertime," which is sunshine <v Rouben Mamoulian>and slow tempo and the rhythm of the south. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So finally made up my mind that this rhythm music should come out. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And I said, well, how do I tell George, who you know, he loved what he wrote. <v Rouben Mamoulian>But luckily, George was not only a great composer, he was a terrific showman. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And he could be very objective. You know, he loved his music.

<v Rouben Mamoulian>Every note he ever and rightly so because it was so good. <v Rouben Mamoulian>But I finally told him, I said, you know, this is the wrong opening. <v Rouben Mamoulian>We should start with "Summertime," with the atmosphere of Charleston. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And right away he took a pencil and crossed the whole piano section <v Rouben Mamoulian>out. It so happened that 2 days before the opening <v Rouben Mamoulian>was my birthday, October 8. <v Rouben Mamoulian>35. And George came on the stage with a kind of a <v Rouben Mamoulian>parchment with a red ribbon around it. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And he handed it to me. I opened it. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And it was the piano music and he inscribed on it, "Here is your birthday <v Rouben Mamoulian>gift, Rouben: the cut piano music." [laughs] But he never hesitated <v Rouben Mamoulian>about that. <v Miles Krueger>That's interesting, because, of course, recently the Houston Opera Company put back <v Miles Krueger>that music. They put back the buzzard song, a lot of other things that were taken out, <v Miles Krueger>presumably with George's own approval. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Well, now you see you're raising a point which I would like to comment on. <v Rouben Mamoulian>I saw the production and they put in all the recitatives, which I

<v Rouben Mamoulian>had cut, the buzzard song, which I had suggested cutting, <v Rouben Mamoulian>the piano music. <v Rouben Mamoulian>And all of these cuts were enthusiastically received by George Gershwin. <v Rouben Mamoulian>Otherwise, I couldn't have cut a single word. <v Rouben Mamoulian>You understand that? No, not a single note. <v Miles Krueger>Why did you choose to cut some of those things like the recitatives and the buzzard song? <v Rouben Mamoulian>Well, I explained to you about the piano music, right? <v Rouben Mamoulian>About the recitatives is because I felt that a number <v Rouben Mamoulian>of recitatives were very Italianateted. <v Rouben Mamoulian>It just sounded like kind of a half baked Italian device, <v Rouben Mamoulian>not fitting into the life of Charleston. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So I thought all the recitatives that had a melodic <v Rouben Mamoulian>line and a mood of the American black and Charleston <v Rouben Mamoulian>should be kept in. But all the others that were really like, "will you go out, I'll do <v Rouben Mamoulian>it tomorrow." Yeah, like that was too Italian. <v Rouben Mamoulian>So I finally told George about that and he agreed completely and he was delighted with

<v Rouben Mamoulian>it.