George Gershwin, Composer, Is Dead

July 12, 1937

George Gershwin, Composer, Is Dead

By THE NEW YORK TIMES

ollywood, Calif. -- George Gershwin, 38-year-old composer, died today at 10:35 A. M. at the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital. He succumbed five hours after being operated on for removal of a brain tumor. The operation was decided upon when the composer's condition became critical at midnight.

Dr. Gabriel Segall of Los Angeles and Dr. Howard Nafsziger, University of California Professor of Surgery, performed the operation at 5 o'clock this morning.

Dr. Walter E. Dandy, Baltimore brain surgeon, turned back at Newark today upon learning that Mr. Gershwin's condition had changed suddenly and he would be operated on at once. Dr. Dandy had been summoned from Chesapeake Bay, where he was cruising over the week-end with Governor Harry W. Nice of Maryland.

Ira Gershwin, who wrote lyrics for his brother's music, was at his side when he died.

Two weeks ago Mr. Gershwin collapsed at the Samuel Goldwyn studios, where he had been working on nine compositions for "The Goldwyn Follies." He had completed five songs before his breakdown. Taken to the hospital for observation, the composer, when released last week, was in an extremely nervous condition. Yesterday he was returned to the hospital in a coma.

Also surviving are his mother, Mrs. Rose Gershwin; a sister, Mrs. Leopold Godowsky Jr. and another brother, Arthur.

He was a member of the American Society of Composers and Publishers, the Lambs Club and the Bohemians.

Child of the Jazz Age

George Gershwin was a composer of his generation. What he wanted to do most, he said, was to interpret the soul of the American people. Thus in the tempo of jazz he jabbed at the dignities of American life, while he won the plaudits of the musical élite with the classic qualities of "A Rhapsody in Blue." With his brother Ira and that master of gentle satire George S. Kaufman he set the nation laughing at the foibles of its government; but, in more serious mood, he found time to write music that the great conductors of his time were glad to present.

Mr. Gershwin was a child of the Twenties, the Age of Jazz. In the fast two-step time of the years after the war he was to music what F. Scott Fitzgerald was to prose. Four years after that mad decade began, Paul Whiteman sent the strains of his Rhapsody cascading far beyond Broadway and the music they called Jazz had come of age. Serge Koussevitsky of the Boston Symphony Orchestra played his work and the capitals of Europe called for more.

For the musical comedy stage, the vaudeville act, the Hollywood lot, he made his music. He had grown up on the streets of Brooklyn and he had served his apprenticeship in Tin Pan Alley. He had turned out tunes with all the tricks of the dove that rhymed with love. He had woven the cadences of Broadway into his songs and he had given America the plaintive Negro music of Porgy and Bess.

What he wrote was always provocative, often distinctive. Some have doubted that his inspiration and craftsmanship kept up with his ambition to use the forms of jazz in the classical manner. Some have claimed that his real contributions were his saucy, tuneful dance and musical comedy tunes. But upon one thing all are agreed--from the scholarly, Phillip Hale to the man in the street--that his music will not soon be forgotten.

Mr. Gershwin was born in Brooklyn, September 26, 1898. His early boyhood gave no indication of a bent toward music, nor was his own attitude toward his music-practicing playmates anything more than contempt. "Little Maggies," he called them.

But when he was 12 years old two things happened that were to awaken a fateful unrest in the boy's mind. First, his mother bought a piano; second, he heard the violinist, Max Rosen, give a recital at school. This started young George on his musical career. The piano proved such an attraction that his parents arranged instruction with a young woman teacher of the neighborhood. In the next few years he turned to several teachers until he met Charles Hambitzer, who is credited by some as having "discovered" Gershwin.

Mr. Hambitzer, teacher of piano, violin and cello, versatile orchestra musician and composer of light music, found his new pupil a genius. It was Mr. Hambitzer who gave Mr. Gershwin his first rudiments of harmony, and initiated him to the wonder of the classics. At a crucial point in the boy's studies Mr. Hambitzer died. Mr. Gershwin was later to study piano with Ernest Hutcheson, and some composition and orchestration with Edward Kilenyi and Rubin Goldmark.

Worked as a 'Plugger'

Mr. Gershwin's real learning came from experience, and his course therein started at Remick's music-publishing house. The boy was 16 then, and had passed two years in the High School of Commerce. His new position was that of "plugger," and it netted him $15 a week. His duties, like those of a corps of other "pluggers," were to tour the haunts of Tin Pan Alley as a floor pianist to a song-and-dance performer, in order to note which songs were best received. For his future work it was invaluable experience.

It was about this time that, sensing his limitations as a concert pianist, he began to write tunes of his own. After two years at Remick's he left to make his first contact with the theatre. It was a job as rehearsal pianist for "Miss 1917," by Victor Herbert and Jerome Kern. His ability was evident immediately and he was retained after the opening of the show by Ned Wayburn at a salary of $35 a week. It was at one of the Sunday concerts that were part of the run of "Miss 1917" that some of Gershwin's songs had first important hearings, for Vivienne Segal sang "You--Just You" and "There's More to a Kiss."

Then followed a rapid succession of events. He went on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit as accompanist to Louise Dresser; he was hired by the publishing firm of Harms as staff composer; he toured as pianist with Nora Bayes, and his muse becoming more and more fertile, his songs were being heard in revues and other shows.

Wrote "Scandals" Music

When he was 20 he received his first musical comedy commission from Alex Aarons. The product was "La La Lucille," given in 1919. He was then introduced to George White, with the result that Gershwin wrote the music for the "Scandals" of five successive years, beginning in 1920.

His renown spread rapidly. In the next decade he was to turn out such musical comedy hits as "Our Nell" (1922), "Sweet Little Devil" (1923), "Lady Be Good," "Primrose" (1924), "Tip Toes," "Song of the Flame" (1925), "Oh, Kay!" (1926), "Strike Up the Band," "Funny Face," "Shake Your Feet" (1927), "Rosalle," "Treasure Girl" (1928), "Show Girl" (1929), "Girl Crazy" (1930), "Of Thee I Sing" (1931), "Pardon My English" (1932), "Let 'Em Eat Cake" (1933).

America was ripe for "Of Thee I Sing" when its characters cavorted across a Boston stage for the first time just before Christmas, 1931. Washington had become a stuffy place in the past few years and the Messrs. Kaufman and Gershwin hit upon the exact psychological moment to present Alexander Throttlebottom and the dancing graybeards of the Supreme Court.

To this gay satire of love in the White House, George Gershwin contributed the catchy tunes. His brother, Ira, wrote the lyrics, and many felt that it had at last developed the Gilbert and Sullivan of the new age. The music, especially that of the finale: "Of thee I sing--baby!" caught the spirit of the book exactly.

To some extent, Mr. Gershwin recaptured the vibrancy of this play in "Let 'Em Eat Cake," it successor, but critics felt, in the words of Mr. Brooks Atkinson, that there was more style than thought. Both scores, however, were hailed as masterpieces of modern light opera composition.

But he brought the artistic haut monde to his feet with the "Rhapsody in Blue," for piano and orchestra. It was written at the suggestion of Paul Whiteman and was first performed in the first concert of jazz music given by Mr. Whiteman's band Feb. 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall. Mr. Gershwin himself played the solo part.

The next large work was the orchestral piece "An American in Paris," first heard at the hands of the Philharmonic-Symphony, under Dr. Damrosch, in Carnegie Hall. Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with Gershwin as soloist, introduced the Second Rhapsody in January, 1932.

Mr. Gershwin often appeared at the Lewisohn Stadium concerts of the Philharmonic- Symphony, as soloist, composer and conductor. One program devoted entirely to his own works, given Aug. 16, 1932, attracted an audience that set a record for the stadium. He appeared with all the leading orchestras in this country and with many in Europe.

Perhaps his most ambitious work was the opera "Porgy and Bess," based on the dramatized novel of Dubose Heyward. Lyrics were by Ira Gershwin and Mr. Heyward. Described as something "between grand opera and musical comedy," it made a sensation at is world première performance in Boston, Sept. 30, 1935, by the Theatre Guild.

It reached the Alvin Theatre in New York Oct. 10 of the same year, and repeated its triumph.

A new light comedy by the Gershwin brothers and Mr. Kaufman had been briefly in the making a short time before the composer died. After going to Hollywood to write the score for the projected "Goldwyn Follies"--on which he was at work when he died--Mr. Gershwin, his brother and Mr. Kaufman had spent about a fortnight on their projected piece.

It was to have been a typical satire, not on government this time, but upon that world they all knew so well--"show business." They were forced to halt operations, however, because of the exacting nature of composing songs for Mr. Goldwyn. Into this work Mr. Gershwin threw himself wholeheartedly and advance reports were that those of his tunes already completed for the motion picture were quite in his best manner.

Mr. Gershwin was a talented painter, and some of his works were placed on exhibition. He was also an enthusiastic collector of art objects and his apartment on Riverside Drive contained some notable items.