Rhapsody In Blue
Rhapsody in Blue is a 1924 musical composition for solo piano and jazz orchestra by the late American composer/songwriter George Gershwin. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects and premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman's band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano.
The rhapsody is one of Gershwin's most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin's piece inaugurated a new era in America's musical history, established his reputation as an eminent composer and became one of the most popular of all concert works. In the American Heritage magazine, Frederic D. Schwarz posits that the famous opening clarinet glissando has become as instantly recognizable to concert audiences as the opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
The piece may be mostly familiar to non-classical enthusiasts by its use in the 1999 Disney animated film Fantasia 2000.
60 years later, The Residents recorded their own abbreviated and minimalist rendition of the piece for their 1984 album George & James, the first entry in their ambitious American Composers Series.