Carnegie Hall

As a youth, George Gershwin (1898–1937) often snuck into rehearsals at Carnegie Hall courtesy of John Totten, the Hall’s house manager from 1927 to 1969. “Gershwin never forgot that,” Totten recalled. “In later years, he always sent me tickets to all his shows.” Totten’s generosity didn’t end with Gershwin’s rise to fame. In 1935, as Gershwin was preparing Porgy and Bess for its opening in Boston, Totten allowed the composer to use Carnegie Hall for dress rehearsals of the opera.

The world premieres of two of Gershwin’s most important concert works took place at Carnegie Hall. The first performance of the Piano Concerto in F Major on December 3, 1925, featured Gershwin as soloist and Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony Orchestra. Damrosch led the New York Philharmonic in the world premiere of An American in Paris at Carnegie Hall on December 13, 1928.

In 1924, bandleader Paul Whiteman asked Gershwin to compose Rhapsody in Blue as part of a concert to be titled An Experiment in Modern Music. Whiteman initially hoped the concert would take place at Carnegie Hall; unfortunately, the Hall was completely booked, so Whiteman turned instead to the much-smaller Aeolian Hall on 43rd Street. Rhapsody in Blue received its Carnegie Hall premiere on April 21, 1924, with Whiteman and His Orchestra and Gershwin as soloist.

In mid-February 1932—shortly after he played the New York premiere of his Second Rhapsody at Carnegie Hall with the Boston Symphony Orchestra—Gershwin took a trip to Havana. “Cuba was most interesting,” he wrote, “especially for its small dance orchestras, which play intricate rhythms most naturally.” As Random House publisher Bennett Cerf, one of Gershwin’s companions on the trip, remembered: “A 16-piece rhumba band serenaded [Gershwin] en masse at 4 AM outside his room at the old Almendares Hotel. Several outraged patrons left the hotel the next morning. George was so flattered that he promised to write a rhumba of his own.”

Gershwin fulfilled his promise a few months later when he composed Rumba (later renamed Cuban Overture), which incorporated bongo drums, maracas, claves, and a gourd he had collected in Havana. These percussion instruments were little-known in America at the time, and Gershwin gave explicit directions in his score that they be placed in front of the orchestra.

The premiere of Rumba took place on an all-Gershwin concert given by the New York Philharmonic at Lewisohn Stadium on August 16, 1932. (Gershwin called it “the most exciting night I ever had.”) Unlike his other concert pieces, the Cuban Overture had to wait several years for a Carnegie Hall performance. Ferde Grofé—who served as chief arranger for Paul Whiteman’s orchestra when he accompanied Gershwin at his very first Carnegie Hall performance in 1924—finally played the Cuban Overture at the Hall with his orchestra on January 19, 1937—just six months before Gershwin’s death.

Photography courtesy of the Carnegie Hall Rose Archives.