Walter rimler biography

William: 75 years ago this fall, “Porgy and Bess” had its premiere.

Walter rimler biography

The following interview for operawarhorses.com is with Gershwin biographer Walter Rimler.

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Wm: 2010 is the 75th anniversary year for George Gershwin’s opera “Porgy and Bess”.

You are the author of a major recent biography of the composer, George Gershwin: An Intimate Portrait, which includes considerable attention to how his music has been evaluated over time. How would you characterize the general reaction to Gershwin’s music in general and “Porgy” in general in 1935 and the present day.

WR: In his lifetime, Gershwin was lionized by the popular music community, which was made up of performers, producers, songwriters, theatergoers and drama critics.

During the 1920s and ’30s – his era – there weren’t any professional critics of popular music because popular songwriting was considered a trade, not an art, and the songs were thought to have very brief lif