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George Gershwin citations

George Gershwin, pseudonyme de Jacob Gershowitz, est un compositeur américain, né le 26 septembre 1898 à Brooklyn et mort le 11 juillet 1937 à Los Angeles .

Né dans une famille juive prolétarienne originaire de Saint-Pétersbourg, George Gershwin fait ses débuts comme pianiste d'orchestre à Broadway. Son frère, Israël dit « Ira », parolier, écrit la plupart des textes de ses chansons que s'arrachent bientôt Al Jolson, Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers ou le producteur Florenz Ziegfeld. Créateur du jazz symphonique, il fait triompher ses comédies musicales. À Paris, il rencontre Maurice Ravel. À Vienne, il se lie d'amitié avec Alban Berg. Véritable star, grand amateur de jolies femmes , ami d'Arnold Schönberg, il s'installe à Hollywood pour composer des partitions cinématographiques ou des chansons populaires. Bon nombre de ses œuvres sont devenues de grands standards de jazz grâce notamment à Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Herbie Hancock et de nombreux autres chanteurs ou acteurs. Il meurt à 38 ans d'une tumeur cérébrale.

✵ 26. septembre 1898 – 11. juillet 1937
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George Gershwin: 12   citations 0   J'aime

George Gershwin: Citations en anglais

“Not many composers have ideas. Far more of them know how to use strange instruments which do not require ideas.”

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George Gershwin

Page 386
The Composer in the Machine Age (1933)

“The composer does not sit around and wait for an inspiration to walk up and introduce itself…Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel.”

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George Gershwin

Isaac Goldberg Tin Pan Alley (New York: John Day, 1930) p. viii.

“My people are American, my time is today…music must repeat the thought and aspirations of the times.”

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George Gershwin

Quoted in Merle Armitage Accent on America (New York: E. Weyhe, 1944) p. 292.

“Jazz I regard as an American folk music; not the only one, but a very powerful one which is probably in the blood and feeling of the American people more than any other style of folk music.”

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George Gershwin

"The Relation of Jazz to American Music", in Henry Cowell (ed.) American Composers on American Music (1933); reprinted in Gregory R. Suriano (ed.) Gershwin in His Time (New York: Gramercy, 1998) p. 97.

“When jazz is played in another nation, it is called American. When it is played in another country, it sounds false. Jazz is the result of the energy stored up in America.”

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George Gershwin

Page 387
The Composer in the Machine Age (1933)

“Modern European composers…have very largely received their stimulus, their rhythms and impulses from Machine Age America. They have a much older tradition of musical technique which has helped them put into musical terms a little more clearly the thoughts that originated here. They can express themselves more glibly.”

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George Gershwin

Page 386
The Composer in the Machine Age (1933)

“I frequently hear music in the heart of noise.”

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George Gershwin

Letter to Isaac Goldberg; published in Joan Peyser The Memory of All That (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993) p. 80.

“The European boys have small ideas but they sure know how to dress 'em up.”

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George Gershwin

Remark quoted in Vernon Duke "Gershwin, Schillinger and Dukelsky: Some Reminiscences", The Musical Quarterly vol. 33 (1947).

“A skyscraper is at the same time a triumph of the machine and a tremendous emotional experience, almost breath-taking. Not merely its height but its mass and proportions are the result of an emotion, as well as of calculation.”

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George Gershwin

Page 387
The Composer in the Machine Age (1933)

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