Between 1800 and 1900 the dominant literary mode of romanticism, with its various transformations, moved in the direction of modernism, accompanied and sometimes assailed along the way by different kinds of realism. More paradoxically, over the same period literature tended to become ever more international, indeed cosmopolitan, even as self-consciously national literatures developed and asserted themselves with growing confidence in Ireland and in the United States, in Russia and in Scandinavia.

In 1898 both George Gershwin and the modern city of New York were born. On January 1, Kings and Richmond counties, along with parts of Queens and Westchester counties, officially consolidated with the island of Manhattan to create the five boroughs of New York that we know today. George Gershwin (listed on his birth certificate as Jacob Gershwine) followed nine months later, entering the world at 242 Snedicker Avenue in Brooklyn on September 26. Gershwin grew to manhood in and with a burgeoning city full of noise, invention, and endless entertainments, whose disparate ethnic neighborhoods retained a character all their own even as they were being knit together in new ways.

Liberalism and democracy are wrongly seen as inseparable by many people today – despite the alarming evidence provided by some governments that are democratically elected yet behave in strikingly illiberal ways. But liberalism and democracy are neither necessarily interchangeable nor allied, either conceptually or historically. The playground on which the relationship was forged and first tested was nineteenth-century politics and thought in Europe and America. It was also in the nineteenth century that the diverse meanings of the two terms were debated and established.

Such hypotheticals betray a reality that affords a fascinating exploration of how Gershwin’s musical legacy – and particularly that of Rhapsody in Blue – has been shaped as a result of his early passing. Gershwin’s death on July 11, 1937 sent shock waves across the nation, and his memorialization through performances of the Rhapsody began almost immediately. Radio responded first, with tributes broadcast coast-to-coast. The evening after Gershwin’s death, David Broekman’s orchestra along with Bing Crosby and Victor Young appeared on the Mutual Broadcasting System, originating from Los Angeles. Simultaneously, the NBC Blue Network in New York City featured a concert by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra. The next day the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of Richard Czerwonky, included Rhapsody in Blue in their CBS broadcast from Grant Park, reaching over one hundred stations.

It could be said that, during the nineteenth century, capitalism took over the world. Developments in trade, finance, manufacturing, farming, energy sources and population growth in Western Europe converged to create a new kind of economy whose rhythms were no longer primarily dictated by pestilence, the seasons, climatic cycles or wars of religion and of succession.

Viewed retrospectively, the most influential thinkers of the nineteenth century were Karl Marx (1818–83) and Charles Darwin (1809–82). Two of their central concepts, class struggle and evolution, both focused on the idea of ‘struggle’, and clearly had some common origin, as Marx at least recognised. Together they provided a definitive leitmotif for fin de siècle Europe and America, whose inheritance was bequeathed to the twentieth century, at least to 1945 (for Social Darwinism), and to 1991 (for Marxism).

George Gershwin has long been a challenging figure to categorize and evaluate within mainstream music historiography. Few have gone as far as the Russian composer Alexander Glazunov, who, after attending a performance of Rhapsody in Blue, deemed him “half human and half animal.” But music historians and chroniclers have reacted variably to the composer’s rather anomalous achievement and place in the history of Western music.

To explore and gauge such differing perspectives on Gershwin, in particular his more serious compositions, I have examined his coverage – or lack thereof – among a fairly broad range of mainly American texts on Western and in particular American and twentieth-century concert music.

George Gershwin composed for the Broadway stage for two decades. Two songs – single numbers in shows featuring several songwriters – bookend this area of Gershwin’s output: “Making of a Girl” in the Passing Show of 1916and “By Strauss” in the 1936 revue The Show Is On (both productions played the Winter Garden Theatre). In the intervening years, Gershwin was the sole credited composer on twenty-two musical shows, and songs by Gershwin were included in nineteen more productions. From 1924 to 1932, Gershwin was a dominant commercial and artistic force on the New York musical stage.

When Hegel died in late 1831, suddenly and unexpectedly, he still reigned, widely acclaimed, over philosophy – and not just in many German-speaking territories. The thought of people inspired by Hegel’s ideas continued to evolve for a long time, from Finland to Naples, from Russia and Poland to France and further afield. However, there was also some awareness that a peak had been attained and limits reached. ‘Our philosophical revolution has come to an end.

George Gershwin has long been a challenging figure to categorize and evaluate within mainstream music historiography. Few have gone as far as the Russian composer Alexander Glazunov, who, after attending a performance of Rhapsody in Blue, deemed him “half human and half animal.” But music historians and chroniclers have reacted variably to the composer’s rather anomalous achievement and place in the history of Western music.

To explore and gauge such differing perspectives on Gershwin, in particular his more serious compositions, I have examined his coverage – or lack thereof – among a fairly broad range of mainly American texts on Western and in particular American and twentieth-century concert music.

Friedrich Nietzsche, writing in the 1880s, foretold a time when ‘psychology shall be recognized again as the queen of the sciences, for whose service and preparation the other sciences exist’. As always with this ‘dancing’ philosopher, the statement invites different interpretations. It seems to say that psychology is the end point of knowledge, yet it gives no hint as to what this psychology is.

George Gershwin encountered Hollywood in the early years of the talkies, as sound technology advanced quickly, public opinion about the role of music in film fluctuated rapidly, and studios experimented with how best to employ composers and songwriters. Entering the world of movie musicals by way of a successful Broadway career was in turns exciting and uncomfortable. Gershwin enjoyed living in Los Angeles but chafed against the reduced artistic control he was afforded. First visiting Los Angeles for fourteen weeks in 1930 to write the score for Fox’s Delicious (1931), and then returning in the last year of his life to compose RKO’s Shall We Dance (1937) and Damsel in Distress (1937), in addition to Samuel Goldwyn’s The Goldwyn Follies (1938), Gershwin’s interaction with Los Angeles and the people who lived and worked there brings into focus both the vitality of a city invigorated by a growing film industry and the tragedy of a promising life cut short.

There are many things to love about Gershwin’s 1935 opera, Porgy and Bess. Most of the tunes are already familiar through jazz standards (“Summertime,” “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’,” “Bess, You is My Woman Now”), and Gershwin’s music has that perfect combination of an undulating Puccini-esque lyricism and catchy syncopations that capture the rhythms of the English language. Gershwin’s music achieves many things at once: it involves full-out operatic singing, yet still has moments that feel like a spontaneous outpouring of emotion. Serena’s “My Man’s Gone Now” at the funeral of her husband in Act I showcases operatic virtuosity and brings on the chills of a new widow’s wail. The “Six Simultaneous Prayers” chorus during the Act II hurricane makes you feel like you have walked into a black church vigil. The creators’ insistence on a black cast makes going to Porgy and Bess a unique experience, and one especially exciting for black audiences, for nowhere else in the repertory do we have the chance to see so many black people on the opera stage – and in the audience.

George Gershwin was an avid traveler, and for most of his adult life he was on the move. There were work retreats in upstate New York, golf excursions and beach trips south (e.g. Florida, Cuba), premieres up and down the East Coast, a trip to Mexico, film projects in California and five trips to Europe. Gershwin’s relationships with his cousins, the poet and folklorist B. A. (Ben) Botkin and his older brother, the painter Henry (Harry) Botkin, deserve to be foregrounded in any discussion of Gershwin’s travels. Through his relationships with them, Gershwin acquired a deep interest in, and knowledge of, folklore and modernist art – topics that increasingly influenced his approach to composition during the last decade of his life, when he went from being a mere traveler to a cultural tourist.

There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact that no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces, which no epoch of the former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman Empire. In our days, everything seems pregnant with its contrary. Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening and fructifying human labour, we behold starving and overworking it.

When George and Ira Gershwin returned to Hollywood in 1936, the town had changed. New songwriters, stars, and sound technologies had made the Hollywood musical a much more appealing medium for the Gershwins; their first effort, Delicious (1931), had fallen short of George’s hopes for the form. Among those in the vanguard of the film musical were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, both of whom had worked with the Gershwins on Broadway and now enjoyed star duo status at RKO. Gershwin’s reputation had changed too. His most ambitious composition, the “folk opera” Porgy and Bess, had opened in 1935. Some in Hollywood wondered whether the new opera composer would deign to write catchy tunes. “They are afraid you will only do highbrow songs,” explained a California-based associate. Gershwin’s wired response was unequivocal: “Rumors about highbrow music ridiculous. Stop. Am out to write hits.”