Classical Music | Violin Music

George Gershwin

Bess, You Is My Woman Now, from Porgy and Bess  Play

Heather Wittels Violin
Craig Terry Piano

Recorded on 03/14/2012, uploaded on 06/20/2012

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

 

Two songs from “Porgy and Bess”      George Gershwin, arr. Jascha Heifetz

George Gershwin's folk opera “Porgy and Bess” is a classic American work whose many enduring melodies have been performed by an enormous variety of singers and instrumentalists in every conceivable style.  Jascha Heifetz wrote five transcriptions of tunes from the opera for violin and piano during the autumn of 1944 at his house in Harbor Island, California.  He hewed very closely to the original songs, with only a few minor interpolations and the addition of double stops and harmonics that enliven the violinist's melodies in the absence of the Dubose Heyward and Ira Gershwin lyrics that one would hear a singer perform.  "Bess, you is my woman now" is a love duet between the opera's titular characters.  "It ain't necessarily so" is the irreverent credo of the drug-dealing character Sportin’ Life.      Heather Wittels