George Gershwin
Bain News Service, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The son of Jewish immigrants who had moved to America to flee Europe’s growing anti-Semitism, George Gershwin was born in a Yiddish neighborhood of New York City in 1898. Unlike many famous composers, he had no musical interest as a child and did not start learning to play the piano until the age of 10, studying formally even later. However, by his teenage years, he began working odd jobs and composing extemporaneous songs in Tin Pan Alley. Over the next decade, he produced many of his own compositions and began writing for Broadway.

Gershwin achieved considerable fame in 1924 with his orchestral work, “Rhapsody in Blue,” which combined symphonic style with the jazz elements in which he was immersed in New York. He continued composing for Broadway, collaborating with his brother Ira on the musical “Lady Be Good,” which included Gershwin’s instant hit song “Fascinating Rhythm.”

Having never studied music formally, Gershwin travelled to Paris and applied to study with Nadia Boulanger, a professor at the Paris Conservatory, as well as French composer Maurice Ravel. Both rejected him. It is possible they looked down on the already-famous Gershwin as peddling in less legitimate forms of music, but there is evidence that they believed Gershwin had a unique style and studying classical techniques would stifle his voice. Ravel famously wrote to Gershwin, saying, “Why become a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?” (After hearing how much money he made on Broadway, Ravel also suggested perhaps Gershwin should be teaching him.) While in Paris, however, Gershwin wrote a piece trying to capture the sounds of wandering around the city, which became “An American in Paris.” He also met composers of the Second Viennese School, including Arnold Schönberg.

He returned to America and continued writing for Broadway, including jazz standards like “I’ve Got Rhythm” and “Embraceable You,” as well as the ambitious “Porgy and Bess,” which blurred the lines between musical and opera. Although it was not commercially successful at first, it gained traction and is now considered a groundbreaking work; it eventually became the first American opera to be performed at La Scala in Milan. Around this time, he also began a relationship with the already-married composer Kay Swift. Swift divorced her husband, although the two never married, possibly Gershwin’s family had reservations about him marrying a woman who was not Jewish.

In 1936, Gershwin moved to Hollywood and began scoring films, notably combining jazz and ballet in two films starring dancer Fred Astaire. Already by this point, however, Gershwin had begun suffering from headaches, olfactory hallucinations, which advanced into coordination problems and blackouts. He collapsed at a friend’s house in 1937 and fell into a coma. Rushed to the hospital, doctors removed a large brain tumor, but Gershwin died following the surgery. He was 38.