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George Gershwin (review)

George Gershwin (review) Book Reviews George Gershwin. By Larry Starr. Yale Broadway Masters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-300-11184-2 (cloth). Pp. xviii, 194. $45.00. The fact that this new book on Gershwin is part of Yale University Press's Broadway Masters series simplifies the matter of stating the book's premise. In a climate that promises a new study of Gershwin almost every year, University of Washington musicologist Larry Starr need not recite biographical data, assess the whole of Gershwin's output, or make yet another comparison/rapprochement between "Gershwin the composer" and "Gershwin the songwriter." While the second aspect of this standard dichotomy is clearly the topic of his book, the "songwriter" that Starr addresses is not the creator of pop/jazz "standards" but, rather, the provider of music for Broadway shows and their ilk. This is not to say that Starr does not reveal himself to be, at heart, a Gershwin apologist. In his preface he admits to having long regarded Gershwin in "a context totally divorced from the Great White Way," and he suggests that resituating Gershwin's work "with Broadway squarely at the center" nowadays might well seem "anachronistic" (xiv). Later he writes that "it is no longer necessary to http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Music University of Illinois Press

George Gershwin (review)

American Music , Volume 30 (1) – Oct 24, 2012

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Publisher
University of Illinois Press
Copyright
Copyright © University of Illinois Press
ISSN
1945-2349
Publisher site
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Abstract

Book Reviews George Gershwin. By Larry Starr. Yale Broadway Masters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2011. ISBN 978-0-300-11184-2 (cloth). Pp. xviii, 194. $45.00. The fact that this new book on Gershwin is part of Yale University Press's Broadway Masters series simplifies the matter of stating the book's premise. In a climate that promises a new study of Gershwin almost every year, University of Washington musicologist Larry Starr need not recite biographical data, assess the whole of Gershwin's output, or make yet another comparison/rapprochement between "Gershwin the composer" and "Gershwin the songwriter." While the second aspect of this standard dichotomy is clearly the topic of his book, the "songwriter" that Starr addresses is not the creator of pop/jazz "standards" but, rather, the provider of music for Broadway shows and their ilk. This is not to say that Starr does not reveal himself to be, at heart, a Gershwin apologist. In his preface he admits to having long regarded Gershwin in "a context totally divorced from the Great White Way," and he suggests that resituating Gershwin's work "with Broadway squarely at the center" nowadays might well seem "anachronistic" (xiv). Later he writes that "it is no longer necessary to

Journal

American MusicUniversity of Illinois Press

Published: Oct 24, 2012

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