Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Wednesday March 2, 2011
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GEORGE GERSHWIN
Larry Starr
Yale Univ
ISBN 978-0300111842
194 pages
$45
Reviewed by Tim Page
It is a truth universally acknowledged that George Gershwin (1898-1937) wrote some irresistible melodies. After that, the debate begins.
Was Gershwin an inspired tunesmith, pure and simple, who nevertheless remained a rank amateur when he attempted to compose in larger forms, such as in his piano concertos or for the opera house? Or did his early death rob us of a distinctly American master, somebody who might have yoked all the strains that made up our wondrously polyglot musical culture of the mid-20th century -- jazz, blues, popular song, European classical stylings, modernist experimentation -- into a sustained and unified expression?
Larry Starr's valuable new book, titled simply "George Gershwin," makes a strong case for the latter view. This is not a traditional biography (although Starr shares some potent biographical vignettes in a section called "Snapshots") but rather an insightful, technically intricate yet easy-to-follow study of Gershwin's music, particularly as it came out of the Broadway tradition.
For, whatever else he was or might have become, Gershwin was a creature of American musical theater: He wrote the music for 19 complete shows on Broadway or on film and concluded his career with the opera "Porgy and Bess."
Starr traces the evolution of Gershwin's style through an in-depth examination of two of the composer's most famous songs -- "The Man I Love," written for one of his first hit shows, "Lady Be Good" (1924); and "Love Walked In" (1937), published six months after the composer's death -- in loving and precise detail. He sets the scene, comparing Gershwin to two other Broadway composers, Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin, without attempting to elevate one at the expense of another. "Berlin and Gershwin (and Kern, and (Richard) Rodgers, and (Cole) Porter; the list could go on and on) were constantly listening to and learning from one another in an environment that was as stimulating and nurturing as it was competitive," the author observes.
The book's tour de force is probably the 33-page chapter devoted to "Of Thee I Sing," a musical comedy about American politics, which opened at New York's Music Box Theater in December 1931 and which Starr describes, Monty Python-style, as "Something Completely Different." It was, and the overture must have mystified its first listeners. "There was no traditional curtain-raising musical gesture leading quickly into a memorable tune," Starr recounts. "Indeed, the overture and 'Wintergreen for President' could justifiably leave one wondering whether in fact this material is truly Gershwin's, or the work of some previously unknown but brilliant theater composer who had obviously learned a lot from Gershwin, while managing to forge a fresh and highly personal musical language of his own." Such insights abound throughout the book.
Which leads us inevitably to "Porgy and Bess." The composer and critic Virgil Thomson summed up Gershwin's only more-or-less traditional opera with his usual pith, calling it "an interesting example of what can be done by talent in spite of a bad set up. With a libretto that should never have been accepted on a subject that should never have been chosen, a man who should never have attempted it has written a work that has some power and importance."
Thomson's qualification is a savvy one. Nobody, to my knowledge, has ever doubted the beauty and energy of the best music in "Porgy." Yet once "Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," "It Ain't Necessarily So" and several of the other "hits" have been sung and played, what remains -- for some of us, at least -- is a dreary, awkward and unbearably ponderous opera that feels longer than two back-to-back performances of Wagner's "Ring" cycle.
Starr hears it differently: "It is difficult to conceive just how Gershwin might have gone beyond 'Porgy and Bess.' The work is so rich, consisting virtually of one musical and dramatic high point after another, that it can seem as if Gershwin was determined to pour every last ounce of himself into this single opus." He calls it a "special, monumental, and ultimately unclassifiable achievement in a brilliant and unclassifiable career." Many musicians and scholars will agree with him, and they will find thoughtful, passionate support in this book. And so the debate continues.
Tim Page is a professor of journalism and music at the University of Southern California. His most recent book is "Parallel Play."
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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FIVE BOOKS ABOUT WORDS
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Reviewed by Yvonne Zipp
Want to create an impromptu singalong? Just stand in a room of Gen X adults and let loose with "Conjunction Junction." I had a mom I'd never spoken with belting out, "What's your function? Hooking up words and phrases and clauses," baffling my son's young teacher. "Schoolhouse Rock" aside, though, grammar isn't the most cuddly subject. Grammarians have a reputation for being humorless sticklers in too-tight buns, slapping hands for breaking arcane rules that bear little relation to the way normal people talk. Take the "law" against ending a sentence with a preposition. It was declared null and void by no less an authority than Henry Watson Fowler in his "Dictionary of Modern English Usage" in 1926, but grammarians are still squabbling about it. These five books offer smart fun for anyone fascinated by the play of language.
1. In the Middle Ages, "grammar" and "glamour" were essentially the same word, writes Roy Peter Clark in his engaging, sometimes downright funny study of English, "The Glamour of Grammar" (Little, Brown, $19.99). The two have since taken such wildly divergent paths that his title seems "oxymoronic, as paradoxical as a sequined pocket protector." Clark, who's so enthusiastic about his subject that he makes a case for the semicolon as a "sex symbol," covers everything from spelling to neologisms, such as this year's Word of the Year, "refudiate." If there is any justice, "anecdotage" ("boring stories from old people" ) will soon be in wide circulation. Clark makes for the most genial grammarian since the singing conductor on "Schoolhouse Rock."
2. English can seem about as complicated as "Goodnight Moon" next to Mandarin. Washington (D.C.)-based journalist Deborah Fallows spent three years living in China with her family trying to make herself understood. Her memoir, "Dreaming in Chinese"  (Walker, $22), offers cultural insights through the lens of her language lessons. She covers big ideas like love and happiness, as well as the degree of difficulty involved in ordering Taco Bell takeout. There's a wonderful chapter on 20th-century linguist, philosopher and songwriter Chao Yuen Ren, who translated "Jabberwocky" into Chinese and once wrote a poem composed of 92 characters that are all pronounced the same. My only criticism: Fallows shouldn't be so reluctant to embrace her awesome Chinese name, "to borrow a pen."
3. Who invented the emoticon? That honor may belong to 19th-century satirist Ambrose Bierce, says Jonathon Keats in his new "Virtual Words" (Oxford Univ., $19.95). In these essays, Keats looks at some of the newest entries to the English language, such as "crowdsourcing" and "steampunk." He leads off with his heaviest stuff, reporting on how the element Copernicium got its name. But "Virtual Words" gets much more accessible to non-scientists as it goes on. Think linguistics has no practical application? Keats explains why PETA activists looking to create meat that doesn't have to die first should come up with an alternative to gross-sounding "in vitro meat."
4. The King James Bible turns 400 this year, and linguists claim it "has contributed far more to English ... than any other literary source." In "Begat" (Oxford Univ., $24.95), David Crystal tries to pin down just how big that contribution really is. From sayings like "fly in the ointment," "fall flat on his face" and "bottomless pit" to words like "talented" and an episode of "Baywatch," its reach is impressive, but perhaps not as encompassing as Christians might think. Crystal's final tally: 257 modern English expressions. (The Bible's closest competitor, William Shakespeare, doesn't break 100.)
5. People utter about six metaphors a minute, writes James Geary. You can't listen to a weather or stock market report without tripping over them. In "I Is an Other" (Harper, $19.99), Geary traces the history of the literary device from Aristotle to Elvis, and covers such topics as synesthesia and Icelandic poetry. He looks at the neurobiology behind metaphors, and he interviews a woman diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, who looks wildly around for pachyderms when someone mentions "an elephant in the room." Whereas "The Glamour of Grammar" would snuggle cozily on any shelf next to Strunk and White's "Elements of Style," "I Is an Other" is more for the serious student.
Yvonne Zipp reviews books regularly for the Christian Science Monitor.
Copyright 2011 Washington Post Writers Group
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