An American in Paris

George Gershwin’s An American in Paris provides a further synthesis of the jazz that he saw as the essentially American folk-music and the traditional classical orchestra. This finds a further place in his triumphantly successful black opera Porgy and Bess, from which Robert Russell Bennett has drawn a Symphonic Picture. Cuban Overture turns to the characteristic rumba, while Gershwin in Hollywood is an instrumental arrangement by Bennett of some of Gershwin’s best known songs.