Fazil Say - Gershwin (LP)

Now also released on LP, this dazzling Gershwin album provides a showcase for the talents of pianist Fazıl Say. Rhapsody in Blue and the variations on ‘I Got Rhythm’ (both with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Kurt Masur) are complemented by solo pieces and Say’s own intimate jazz arrangements of numbers from Porgy and Bess.

“Gershwin is really unique in the history of music,” writes Fazıl Say, “His approach to tonality combines a whole series of harmonic and melodic ideas with new and exotic elements that few composers had thought of till then: jazz and classical music, America and Europe, black and white link hands here.” As the New York Times wrote when the Turkish pianist performed Rhapsody in Blue in Manhattan: “He has a big technique and a colorful imagination.”