By Strauss

"By Strauss" is a 1936 song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin. It pays homage to the music of Johann Strauss, Sr. and Johann Strauss, Jr..

Lyrics

The singer sings how he doesn't like Broadway, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter and - in a case of self-mockery - George Gershwin. Instead he wants to dance to waltzes by father and son Strauss. The lyrics namedrop three of Strauss's best known compositions, namely An der schönen blauen Donau ("Let the Danube flow along"), Die Fledermaus ("and the Fledermaus") and Wein, Weib und Gesang ("Keep the wine and give me song").[1]

History

Performed by the Gershwins at private parties, Vincente Minnelli included it in his 1936 revue The Show Is On, where it was introduced by Gracie Barrie and Robert Shafter.[2]

It was then performed by Gene Kelly, Georges Guétary, and Oscar Levant (dubbed by Mack McLean) in Minnelli's 1951 film An American in Paris.[3]

The song was also featured in the 2012 musical Nice Work If You Can Get It, performed by the character Estonia Dulworth in a counterpoint with a reprise of "Sweet and Lowdown".

Notable recordings

Many other artists have also recorded the song.[4]

gollark: Anyway, we have many available hosting octachorons™: you can choose from our main server, a random raspberry pi plugged into it, technically a spare smartphone, VPS 1, and VPS 2, which is ARM-based.
gollark: As planned.
gollark: Well, TLS is handled by nginx on our osmarksplatforms™ so it's fine.
gollark: Also to all other devices.
gollark: We recommend adding it to your browsers.

References
  1. "genius.com". genius.com. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  2. "Internet Broadway Database". ibdb.com. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  3. "Internet Movie Database". imdb.com. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  4. "secondhandsongs.com". secondhandsongs.com. Retrieved June 19, 2020.


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.