And now for something `seriously' Gershwin ...

Byline: FRED CRAFTS The Register-Guard

THE FIRST TIME conductor James Paul heard George Gershwin's symphonic music, he was "hooked for life."

The piece was the Concerto in F (1925), performed, Paul recalls, "on that wonderful old recording" by pianist Earl Wild and the Boston Pops, conducted by Arthur Fiedler.

Not surprisingly, Concerto in F is one of the pieces Paul will conduct - with pianist William Wolfram as the soloist - at the Oregon Festival of American Music on Friday.

The ambitious program also includes the Overture to "Girl Crazy" (1930), Three Preludes for solo piano (1926), arranger Robert Russell Bennett's A Symphonic Portrait of Gershwin's ``Porgy and Bess'' (1942) and "An American in Paris" (1928).

"I'm terribly excited about this music," Paul says by phone from a concert engagement at Chicago's Grant Park.

Paul's enthusiasm is genuine. He knows Gershwin's orchestral pieces inside and out, and has conducted them many times with many different orchestras. They still give him immense pleasure.

"Gershwin has become an American classic; that is, one to whom you turn as an example of something that has passed the test of time," Paul says.

"Long after some other music by what we now call classical music composers of our time is no longer played, I do believe certain of Gershwin's scores will be played.

They are so representative of a time and a place, a period, even as (Wolfgang) Mozart and (Franz Joseph) Haydn were representative of a time and a place; they have become classics, touchstones."

Primarily a composer of popular music for Broadway shows and films, Gershwin, in his lamentably short life (he died when he was 39), wrote only a handful of so-called serious compositions.

Although Gershwin grew up emulating the novelty and ragtime tunes of his day, he also got a dose of historical music from his teacher, Charles Hambitzer, who introduced him to the music of Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg and a smattering of the classical piano literature.

Among the pianists Gershwin admired were the flamboyant Franz Liszt and the heroes of the day such as Josef Lhevinne, Josef Hoffmann and Ferrucio Busoni.

Traces of Frederic Chopin, Liszt and Debussy can be heard in Gershwin's music, Paul says, especially in the piano pieces. "He had an ear that allowed him to pick up all kinds of things, from primitive to the most advanced music being written in his time. Gershwin was a very accomplished and cosmopolitan man."

And very much his own person.

"Nobody else sounds quite like George Gershwin," Paul says. "He was a composer who truly found his own, unique voice. The Gershwin voice, the Gershwin sound, the Gershwin way of speaking, was there from the beginning, and that's true of Beethoven and Haydn."

In the festival's concluding concert, on Saturday, the main work will be Paul Whiteman's jazz band arrangement of Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue," a composition that confounded critics. Nobody was quite sure in 1924 what exactly was meant by the term "jazz." As OFAM jazz adviser Dick Hyman puts it, "Back then, all was semantic chaos. To some, jazz meant the songs of Irving Berlin; to others, anything having to do with saxophones."

Whiteman billed his Aeolian Hall concert as "An Experiment in Modern Music," which drew critics more comfortable with classical literature. They were uncertain about what they were hearing, and reaction to "Rhapsody in Blue" was mixed. One writer praised Gershwin's "extraordinary talent" while another could "only weep at the lifelessness of the melodies, so derivative, so stale, and so inexpressive."

While the debate raged, jazz musicians such as James P. Johnson were trying to write something like it. Johnson's "Yamekraw" (1928) was subtitled by its publisher as "Rhapsody In Black."

Gradually, around 1930, true jazz writers began to emerge, but they were not kind to Gershwin. Many blasted his music as not being jazzy enough; his "Rhapsody in Blue" didn't swing, they said. The poor man could please nobody - except the public.

Paul says Gershwin has been unfairly maligned: "He doesn't have to be an American symphonic composer to be a great composer. We have apples and we have oranges. He was a very great artist in what he did do."

Playing the piano parts in the "An American in Paris" concert on Friday and in the "Rhapsody in Blue" program on Saturday will be 47-year-old William Wolfram, a silver medalist at the William Kapell and Naumburg competitions and a bronze medalist at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Known for his blistering technique and sensitive interpretations, Wolfram performs regularly throughout North America as recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician. His usual repertoire includes Sergey Prokofiev's Third Piano Concerto, Richard Strauss' "Burleske," Ludwig van Beethoven's Second and Third concertos, Peter Tchaikovsky's First Concerto, Serge Rachmaninoff's Third Concerto, Leonard Bernstein's "Age of Anxiety" and Chopin's First Piano Concerto.

But, Wolfram is a "fan" of Gershwin. "Some of his melodies are just glorious," he says. "I wish I knew more."

Among the pieces he knows well are the Three Preludes, which he says are "the closest thing to doing the songs. I wish they were longer or he wrote more; they feel like they're over in a second. Just three great tastes, and you're out of there. In a way, they're the ideal encore."

Another piece Wolfram adores is the Concerto in F, which he asserts is "more complex that the `Rhapsody in Blue.' It's a harder piece to put together with the orchestra. With `Rhapsody in Blue,' the piano plays, then the orchestra plays. The Concerto in F is a lot more of back and forth. Because of the fact that it's harder to put together and it's longer, it certainly feels like it's a more formidable job, whereas the rhapsody seems lighter and brighter and quicker.

"Because of the criteria I have just listed, some people might rank the concerto as a more substantial piece than `Rhapsody in Blue.' I don't see why. It's just longer and more complicated. It's a very different performance experience."

The "Rhapsody in Blue" that Gershwin wrote for Whiteman's dance band in 1924, before he expanded it for a string orchestra, will be performed twice Saturday.

Teen-ager Wayne Shen of Phoenix, Ariz., will play it with the Northwest Advanced String camp orchestra and members of the festival's American Symphonia, conducted by John Haggard, in a Heritage Concert at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at The Shedd.

(Also on the program are Gershwin's Lullaby and Preludes for Piano (arranged for string orchestra), David Diamond's Round for String Orchestra, Aaron Copland's "Hoe Down" and Kurt Atterberg's Suite for Violin, Viola and String Orchestra, featuring violinist Fritz Gearhart and violist Leslie Straka of the University of Oregon School of Music.)

Then Wolfram will play the piece with Dick Hyman's band at 7 p.m. Saturday at Cuthbert Amphitheater.

"I much prefer it," Wolfram says. "I miss the strings a little bit, with the big juicy melody at the end. However, for most of the piece, it just cooks. It's so much more of a jazz ensemble piece. It sounds so right this way. The energy is so just correct for this piece. It mandates a fast tempo, and things just chug along. After hearing the band version, to me the orchestral version is a little low-gear."

Jazz pianist Dick Hyman agrees. Hyman says Gershwin's own playing was rough, flashy and "without the `classical' nuances which would later be brought to his concert works by others.

Because Wolfram is not a jazz pianist, playing Gershwin is a stretch. "My main concern is that I don't sound like a classical pianist playing it," he admits. "I've heard some good recordings of these pieces, but I've heard some really stiff ones from classical artists, too, where I've thought, this guy needed to have a beer. I don't want to sound like that. I'm trying to be loose and lose my classical roots a little bit."

How does he do that?

"Just by sound. Like the way you absorb an accent. You can't really point to any technical things," Wolfram says. "I've heard enough jazz over the years so I know what I need to do. It's just a problem in trying to assimilate and getting it across.

"To be honest with you, I'm not really a fan of jazz. There's are things that I love about jazz but lots I don't get. I've always loved rock. I love pop. I even love country. But jazz is just not the kind of music I gravitate to."

All jazz issues aside, Gershwin is a composer Wolfram takes "seriously."

"He was a sensational composer, and this is great music."

THE SERIOUS WORKS

WHAT: James Paul, the American Symphonia and pianist William Wolfram play George Gershwin's serious works - Concerto in F, Three Preludes and "An American in Paris" - along with his Overture to "Girl Crazy" and "A Symphonic Portrait of Gershwin's `Porgy and Bess' " by Robert Russell Bennett.

WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday

WHERE: Hult Center for the Performing Arts, Seventh and Willamette streets

HOW MUCH: $16 to $42, at the Hult Center box office (682-5000)

FINAL CONCERT: Wolfram will play "Rhapsody in Blue" with Dick Hyman's jazz band in the closing concert of this year's festival, at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Cuthbert Amphitheater in Alton Baker Park; tickets, at $18.50 each, are available at the Hult Center box office (682-5000)

GUARDLINE: To hear Gershwin music, call GuardLine at 485-2000 from a touch-tone phone and request category 3733.

CAPTION(S):

William Wolfram is the pianist at two concerts of Gershwin's orchestral work.