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''An American in Paris'' is a jazz-influenced symphonic poem by the American composer George Gershwin, written in 1928. Inspired by the time Gershwin had spent in Paris, it evokes the sights and energy of the French capital in the 1920s and is one of his best-known compositions. Gershwin composed ''An American in Paris'' on commission from the conductor Walter Damrosch. He scored the piece for the standard instruments of the symphony orchestra plus celesta, saxophones, and automobile horns. He brought back some Parisian taxi horns for the New York premiere of the composition, which took place on December 13, 1928 in Carnegie Hall, with Damrosch conducting the New York Philharmonic.〔http://nyphil.org/~/media/pdfs/program-notes/1314/Gershwin-An%20American%20in%20Paris.pdf〕 Gershwin completed the orchestration on November 18, less than four weeks before the work's premiere. Gershwin collaborated on the original program notes with the critic and composer Deems Taylor, noting that: "My purpose here is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere." When the tone poem moves into the blues, "our American friend ... has succumbed to a spasm of homesickness." But, "nostalgia is not a fatal disease." The American visitor "once again is an alert spectator of Parisian life" and "the street noises and French atmosphere are triumphant." ==Background== Gershwin was attracted by Maurice Ravel's unusual chords. After transatlantic letters back and forth as to whether Ravel took students and how much he charged, Ravel looked at Gershwin's prior year earnings and sent a telegram to Gershwin jokingly saying he (Ravel) should study with Gershwin!...but he accepted him as a student. Gershwin went to Paris in 1926 ready to study and to enjoy his first trip to Paris. After his initial student audition with Ravel turned into a sharing of musical theories, Ravel said he couldn't teach him but he would send a letter referring him to Nadia Boulanger. While the studies were cut short, that 1926 trip resulted in the initial version of An American in Paris written as a 'thank you note' to Gershwin's hosts, Robert and Mabel Shirmer. Gershwin called it "a rapsodic ballet' written so freely and much more modern than his prior works. Gershwin strongly encouraged Ravel to come to the United States for a tour, something Ravel had been reluctant to do. To this end, upon his return to New York, Gershwin joined the efforts of Ravel's friend Robert Schmitz, a pianist Ravel had met during the War to urge Ravel to tour the U.S. Schmitz was the head of Pro Musica promoting Franco-American musical relations and was able to offer Ravel a $12,000 fee for the tour, an enticement Gershwin knew would be important to Ravel. Gershwin greeted Ravel in NY in February 1928 at the start of Ravel's U.S. Tour, and joined Ravel again later in the tour in Los Angeles. After a lunch together with Chaplin in Beverly Hills, Ravel was persuaded to perform an unscheduled 'house concert' in a friend's music salon, performing among kindred spirits. Ravel's tour reignited Gershwin's desire to return to Paris which he did in March 1928. Ravel's high praise of Gershwin in an introductory letter to Boulanger caused Gershwin to seriously consider taking much more time to study abroad in Paris. Yet after playing for her, she told him she could not teach him. Nadia Boulanger gave Gershwin basically the same advice she gave all of her accomplished master students "Don't copy others; be yourself." In this case "Why try to be a second rate Ravel when you are already a first rate Gershwin?" This did not set Gershwin back, as his real intent abroad was to complete a new work based on Paris and perhaps a second rhapsody for piano and orchestra to follow his ''Rhapsody in Blue''. Paris at this time hosted many expatriate writers: among them Ezra Pound, W. B. Yeats, Ernest Hemingway; and artist Pablo Picasso. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「An American in Paris」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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