Revisionism has hit Gershwin, whose manuscript affairs have needed sorting out ever since his premature death in 1937. Unscrupulous editors took a hand in preparing his scores for publication and he was always too busy to bother. So was everybody else until now. At last Alicia Zizzo has gained access to what material survives, or has recently been discovered, and she has made new editions of the music, which she performs here.
The CD of solos contains unknown short pieces which everyone interested in Gershwin will need to possess. It has always been known that there were more than the three published Preludes. No. 5 is the nifty 1919 Novelette in Fourths, anticipating both Confrey and Mayerl, which surfaced in the CD transfer of Gershwin’s own piano roll performances (Nonesuch, 4/94) which makes Zizzo’s treatment seem tame. No. 7 is negligible since it is only a 25-second fragment which became the start of the Piano Concerto’s finale. But both Nos. 2 and 3, like most of the other short pieces, are really charming discoveries. Some are already familiar. As played by Zizzo the original manuscript of the Irish waltz (also known as Three-quarter blues) simply goes round its tune twice and so does the Impromptu in two keys – now in the higher key of E flat and a vast improvement on the 1973 score. Both have detailed rhythmic differences.
The Blue Monday Suite is based on Gershwin’s piano score, recently discovered along with Will Vodery’s orchestration, for the unsuccessful 1922 one-act opera (EMI, 1/94), which is often regarded as a study for Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess. Although almost half the length of the opera, the suite provides further access to some characteristic Gershwin full of pre-echoes of things to come, including “The man I love” and even Jack Strachey’s 1936 hit, “These foolish things”, plus blue note.
The original solo piano version of Rhapsody in Blue reveals unknown extra passagework at 8'02'' to 8'17'' and 13'47'' to 14'05''. Surprisingly, Zizzo’s recording of the version with orchestra includes only the first of these transitions. There are detailed differences in the other orchestral works with the Budapest SO under Charry. A few examples from the Concerto: in the first movement, the piano is added from 7'28'' to 7'48''; the variation at 9'04'' is not soft and is faster than usual; and at 10'29'' a tam-tam stroke – surely an improvement since the string figures always seem to need help – is added to conform with the last-movement climax at 5'37''. In the second movement there are no pauses in the piano solo at 7'01''. The close-harmony sax parts are well controlled here, but the solo trumpet is too distant at times.
The 1919 Lullaby – as a piano solo – offers some charming impressionistic meandering with a Spanish tinge including a pre-echo of “The man I love”, again at 3'29''. This is really the best part of the orchestral CD since the other performances are slightly disappointing. Not the fault of Zizzo, who is always stylish and sharply rhythmic, but poor recorded balance and piano sound as well as occasional weak orchestral ensemble make these performances uncompetitive with the best of the other versions of Rhapsody in Blue (over 60 of them) and the Piano Concerto (over 30). But future Gershwin performers will need to come to terms with Zizzo’s discoveries, which means these recordings and the newly edited scores from Warner-Chappell.'