To the Editor:Re “A Chestnut Stuck in Time: Nostalgia Stymies Fusion,” by Ethan Iverson (Arts & Leisure, Jan. 28), about “Rhapsody in Blue” at 100:Mr. Iverson’s article saddles Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” with the task of not only changing music history (which it did) but also singularly overhauling Western music pedagogy.
No artist in any medium could accomplish this, so I’m not sure why Mr. Iverson is holding poor Gershwin to this unrealistic standard.
What the article did do was make me listen to “Rhapsody in Blue,” twice, for the first time in about 20 years.
Mr. Iverson finds the work “naïve and corny” — points he does not elaborate upon — but I was struck by what a formal miracle the piece is.
Like Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring,” written 11 years earlier, Gershwin’s “Rhapsody” holds together through the savvy repetition of varied and memorable material.
Persons:
Ethan Iverson, I’m, Iverson, Gershwin, ”, Stravinsky’s, Mr, —
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Arts & Leisure