Like Bartók and Stravinsky, Gershwin was both a discoverer and an inventor (pp. 39-59). Many of his musical sources were African-American and Jewish, and he was inventive in the areas of rhythmic variation, placement of accents, and color. Gershwin observed a large population of Gullah Negroes on Folly Island in order to compose the score of his "folk opera" Porgy and Bess (pp. 149-53). He had great difficulty with the critics for his "vulgar" borrowing from the jazz idiom (pp. 84-121).

Works: Gershwin: Porgy and Bess, Piano Concerto, An American in Paris.

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Daniel Bertram