George Gershwin

Concerto in F

After sensational successes with the musical "Lady, be good!", with evergreens such as "Fascinating Rhythm" and "The Man I love" and with the "Rhapsody in Blue", Gershwin premiered his "Concerto in F" for piano and orchestra as a soloist at Carnegie Hall in 1925. The new Broadway superstar had thus also arrived at the center of the New York classical music scene.

In its eventful history, the work underwent numerous changes, cuts and arrangements, many of them dubious and unauthorized. The first and so far only printed orchestral score, "edited by" Frank Campbell-Watson, published in 1942 five years after Gershwin's death, also contains many unauthorized alterations.

In years of research, editor Norbert Gertsch has succeeded in freeing the work from all unauthorized ingredients and changes and reconstructing an Urtext in the original sense of the word from the complex source material - from autograph sketches to early sound recordings. The first critical edition of the work is a joint production by Breitkopf (score/orchestral parts) and G. Henle Verlag (piano reduction).