Gershwin, Jazz, and the Music of Jewish Émigrés

Part of TŌN’s Carnegie Hall series

This program compares the musical styles of five Jewish composers—many of whom were Eastern European émigrés to the U.S.—writing during the explosive rise of the Jazz Age in the early 20th century. Written pre-WWI, Ignatz Waghalter’s expressive Violin Concerto exemplifies the European style before jazz took hold, while Lazare Saminsky, who was critical of the new musical form, gave us the vividly mystical triad Vigiliae. Written at the height of the Roaring Twenties in Germany, Ernst Toch’s Comedy for Orchestra in One Movement incorporates a vibrant and witty rhythmic pulse that represents the impact jazz had on the European avant-garde. Louis Gruenberg’s 1925 Jazz Suite demonstrates the marriage of jazz with the traditional classical form, which reached its pinnacle with An American in Paris by George Gershwin, an American capturing the energy of Europe through a thoroughly jazz-colored lens.