What is the difference between rhapsody and symphony

Works by Copland, Sessions, Perle, and Rands. Works by Schuman, Copland, Sessions. Sorry, but your browser is out dated and can't play audio. Burlesque Roger Sessions. Elegy Roger Sessions. Pastorale Roger Sessions. Allegro deciso Roger Sessions. George Gershwin, piano. Paul Whiteman, conductor. Like the creole spoken in New Orleans, jazz was a second-generation language, merging African-American, Caribbean, and white dance styles. Each of these versions attests not only to the skills of arrangers, but also to the durability of the themes Gershwin crafted for the Rhapsody.

This verve is contrasted by the sweeping love theme eventually coopted by United which one suspects began its life as an attempt at an actual love song, probably consigned to the un-used pile until it could be finished or re-purposed. Like Gershwin, Jacques Ibert prized variety in his music and often gravitated toward the theater.

In fact, the first movement features several brief quotes from American in Paris , albeit cleverly disguised by a darker minor-mode harmony. In the first movement, Ravel uses the blues as the more lyrical counterpoint to a bubbling first theme.

Like Gershwin, Ravel aims for a piano tour-de-force, where the virtuosity of a jazz improvisation and a concerto overlap, but within the more traditional context of a modified sonata form.

After a hazy developmental section, the cadenza halfway through the first movement sounds as if it might just as easily fly from the fingers of an Art Tatum or a Bud Powell as from a Mozart or a Chopin. The second movement is a slow, sentimental waltz, equal parts Tin Pan Alley and French melodie. He and his brother Ira had a back room where there was an upright piano, and that is where Rhapsody in Blue grew into being.

It was Ira who came up with the title, inspired by a visit to a gallery showing an exhibit of paintings by James Abbot McNeill Whistler. The Gershwin brothers took a shine to the concept, and found a musical equivalent in the title Rhapsody in Blue.

Gershwin devoted about a month to writing the piece, but it shared his schedule with other projects, including a trip to Boston for the premiere of his musical Sweet Little Devil.

And there I suddenly heard—and even saw on paper—the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end. I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America—of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness.

By the time I reached Boston I had a definite plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.

That opening glissando became an iconic sound of American music.