Well done! Thank you. I've been've been playing Gershwin's music on the piano pretty much all my life. The thing about George Gershwin is that he has so many facets to his music. On one hand he gives us "I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise" and on the other such tender little pieces such as "Lullaby". The 2nd movement of the Concerto in F, with that short phrase for string quartet is equally beautiful. I think "Lullaby" comes to us (relatively) recently from Ira via Michael Tillson Thomas, who was friends with Ira, though I'm not sure.
So love this piece. Marvelous exploration by this excellent quartet. Gershwin would often put me to sleep with this lovely lullaby when I lived in NYC.
Apparently he played this at parties on the piano and it was a favorite of his society friends. I only heard it this week for the first time on a classical station. So sweet and comforting but with that sense of longing I hear in many Gershwin songs.
I discovered this Gershwin gem a couple of years ago. It's so unlike what I think of as Gershwin. Lovely. This group has the best version I've found on RU-vid. Their instruments' tones compliment each other. Could listen to this over and over and have.
This piece was not played during Gershwin's popularity, but was released (probably by his brother in the late 1960's. My Mom was a real Gershwin fan, and she bought it and played it for us. That was a real treat for us... So is this!!!!!!
This sounds right as Michael Tilson Thomas released an LP with a bunch of new Gershwin music, including this piece. This was about the time Ira was going through his stuff with Michael Feinstein. Probably in the 1970's.
I have been obsessively listening to another quartet playing this on Spotify for the last two weeks since discovering it, and it is stunning to watch this quartet play this deeply beautiful piece. This music speaks to my soul, and this quartet plays it to perfection. I love watching the animated first chair violinist, who clearly has all the feels for the piece he's playing! (I never realized those violin notes are often just the same bowing -- it sounds like separate strokes but not quite. Wow! ) The harmonics and other high notes remind me of Beethoven's Violin Concerto 2nd movement, with the etherial lone violin notes reaching for the heavens. Thank you for this. Makes me so happy to watch them.
SEHR SCHÖN!! Sehr, sehr schön. Very Beautiful! Very, very beautiful. A delicate touch on a piece that requires such a touch, and the contrasting voices are meticulously brought out. I only wish that Gershwin wrote a string quartet that included this lovely composition as movement...I wonder where he could have gone with that. But I seem to remember reading somewhere that this work was a study for him, prepared for one of his early teachers.
