The Hollywood Career of Gershwin's "Second Rhapsody"

Abstract

George Gershwin's "Second Rhapsody" for Piano and Orchestra, which premiered in January 1932, was initially described as an "expanded" version of music that had been written for a 1931 Fox film titled "Delicious." In truth, Gershwin had finished the piece months before the movie went into production. His sketch for the complete work was made when the screenplay was still in its beginning stages. Evidence including manuscripts, various drafts of the screenplay, the conductor's score used for the film's recording sessions, and the restored film itself are used to clarify both the chronological and substantive relationship between the 15-minute "Second Rhapsody" and the soundtrack's seven-minute "New York Rhapsody." The first detailed account of the musico-narrative content of the picture's "New York Rhapsody" sequence is offered, and it is shown that the "New York Rhapsody" is a truncation of the "Second Rhapsody" engineered most probably by Fox Studios employee Hugo Friedhofer.