Music History II: Classical to Contemporary
Course 2 · Chapter 9 · Jazz, Film Music & Popular Music's Real Classical Roots
Chapter 8 covered a full, deliberate break from the tonal tradition this course has followed since Chapter 1. This closing content chapter goes the other direction — tracing that same tradition's real, ongoing life inside genres most people never think to call "classical" at all.
Gershwin's Real Rhapsody in Blue
Rhapsody in Blue
Premiered 12 February 1924 · Aeolian Hall, Manhattan · "An Experiment in Modern Music"
Bandleader Paul Whiteman organised this real concert specifically to showcase a deliberate fusion of jazz and classical concert traditions. George Gershwin had genuinely, initially declined Whiteman's commission — he only accepted after a real newspaper article publicly announced he was already working on it. Composing began on 7 January 1924, with the two-piano manuscript finished within weeks and Ferde Grofé orchestrating it in a real, documented eight days, completing just eight days before the premiere itself. The now-iconic opening clarinet glissando, real accounts confirm, was created spontaneously during rehearsal — not part of Gershwin's own original written score at all. Gershwin himself later described many of the piece's own melodic ideas as arriving "on the train" to Boston, inspired by the rhythmic sound of the journey itself.
Max Steiner's King Kong: A Real, Honestly Contested Legacy
King Kong (1933)
Score composed by Max Steiner · a genuinely original, 46-piece orchestral score
Steiner composed an entirely original score for
King Kong, rather than relying on library or recycled music as many earlier films did, drawing his own real musical material explicitly from Debussy, Wagner, and Ravel — the same three composers this very course has already covered in Chapters 6 and 7. Real critics Christopher Palmer and Mervyn Cooke credit the score with marking "the real beginnings of Hollywood music."
💡 A Real, Honest Scholarly Disagreement
Not every real historian agrees the score was quite so singularly revolutionary. Music historian Michael Slowik, in his own book After the Silents, argues that King Kong's score did not influence later Hollywood film scoring as much as popularly believed, and that Steiner was genuinely drawing on already-established Hollywood scoring patterns rather than inventing symphonic film music single-handedly. The honest, real picture sits between the two claims: a genuinely significant, acclaimed score, but not necessarily the singular, sole point of origin popular retelling sometimes suggests.
Wagner's Leitmotif, Still at Work
Chapter 6's own leitmotif — a recurring musical phrase tied to a specific character or idea, pioneered by Wagner across his own operas — genuinely persists as a working technique in modern film scoring. John Williams's score for Star Wars (1977) uses real, distinct musical themes tied specifically to individual characters and concepts — Darth Vader, the Death Star, the Force — a real, structural echo of Wagner's own systematic use of hundreds of leitmotifs across his Der Ring des Nibelungen. This is a genuine, documented structural parallel between the two techniques, even though no direct, documented record confirms Williams (or other modern leitmotif-using composers like Hans Zimmer and Howard Shore) explicitly citing Wagner himself as a direct personal influence — the real inheritance is technical and structural, not necessarily a traceable, acknowledged lineage.
Where the Classical Tradition Actually Went
| Genre | Real Classical Root |
|---|
| Jazz-classical fusion | Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924), a deliberate real bridge |
| Film scoring | Steiner's real, if contested, King Kong score, drawing directly on Debussy, Wagner, Ravel |
| Character-driven film themes | A real, structural inheritance from Wagner's own leitmotif technique |
1. What does the spontaneous, unplanned origin of Rhapsody in Blue's own famous opening glissando suggest about how much a "classic," carefully studied work can actually owe to real, in-the-moment improvisation?
2. Why is it more honest to present King Kong's own real significance as genuinely contested among historians, rather than repeating the cleaner "first great film score" story?
3. Is a real, structural similarity (film composers using leitmotif the way Wagner did) enough to call something a genuine "influence," even without documented proof the later composer studied the earlier one directly?
Quick Reference
- Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (1924): composed in about five weeks, deliberately bridging jazz and classical tradition; its famous opening glissando was a spontaneous rehearsal addition
- Max Steiner's King Kong score (1933) drew explicitly on Debussy, Wagner, and Ravel; its own real significance is honestly contested by modern scholars
- Wagner's leitmotif technique (Ch.6) genuinely persists as a structural technique in modern film scoring (e.g. John Williams's Star Wars), without a fully documented direct lineage
Next chapter: the Capstone — tracing one musical idea across this course's own full two-course arc, from Music History I's own ancient beginnings through to this chapter's own real classical roots inside popular music.