Album Notes

Hearing the great music of Gershwin in these new Matt Herskowitz solo piano arrangements.

Matt Herskowitz grew up with Gershwin's music; Rhapsody in Blue was one the first concertos he ever performed. So when CBC radio asked him to put together an all Gershwin concert, he eagerly agreed. For the occasion, he decided to arrange the Cuban Overture for solo piano; the seeds of the solo Gershwin recording project were born.

Written at an exciting time when the rhythms of Cuban music were just starting to make their mark on American musical culture, Gershwin here is stretching his compositional legs with beautifully woven lines and harmonies, evoking Cuba in its heyday as a bustling tourist resort. Packed with contrapuntal lines flying all over the place in a dizzying frenzy like a parade in Havana, it seemed a daunting task to fit it all in to two hands and still capture its vibrant frenetic energy. We're pleased to present the first solo piano arrangement of this wonderful piece on disc.

The Concerto in F has everything; the great sweeping melodies of the Rhapsody in Blue, and the contrapuntal complexity of the Cuban Overture, all in a perfectly shaped formal concerto structure. For Matt, this is Gershwin's greatest piece. The structure is incredibly tight, and Gershwin makes full use of the main thematic material from the first movement's exposition throughout the piece, beautifully molding and transforming these themes to create an enormous emotional range that holds together beautifully. There's even perhaps a kind of new clarity in the solo piano arrangement that isn't in the orchestra version, giving it a new edge.