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Porgy in Vienna
Paperback
Publisher Price: $19.99
Publisher: Sub Sole Publishing
Published: Sep 26 2025
Pages: 396
Weight: 0.98
Height: 0.81 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.25
Language: English
The culmination of years of study of George Gershwin's opera Pogy and Bess, this analysis begins by suggesting that Alban Berg's opera Wozzeck had an influence on Gershwin's blend in the work of his accustomed tonal language with elements of posttonal music.
It is based on a Schenkerian analysis of the entire piece, from beginning to end. One aspect of the analysis is that it represents the first thorough examination of the dozens of leitmotivs and other imaginative musical links with which Gershwin creates dramatic meaning in the music itself.
Among other issues, such as those concerning performances of Porgy, the text addresses the cuts that are almost always made. (The role of Porgy, in particular, is very long and taxing even for highly trained professional singers.)
After a brief introduction considering some of the reasons why this very well-known and popular piece has ironically not received the kind of critical attention it merits, two short chapters follow. The first is designed to give the reader a basic understanding of Heinrich Schenker's ideas and their significance, and the second, an acquaintance with the fundamentals of posttonal theory.
An additional feature is the publication of the musical examples in a separate, larger-format booklet (ISBN 979-8-218-79852-9). The idea is to save those reading the book the trouble of having to jump back and forth between an example and the discussion of it, which inevitably occupies a number of pages after the insertion of the example.
A reader who simply wants to glean a sense of some of the beauties of Gershwin's last work will find much of interest here. A reader who can give the book the attention it frankly requires will come away with a greatly enhanced in-depth appreciation of what makes Porgy and Bess a masterpiece.
Arthur Maisel is a composer and lives in Philadelphia. He first received a copy of the complete piano-vocal score as a birthday present in his early teens.
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