George and Ira Gershwin Collection [finding aid ... - American Memory

1906, Dec. 6 Frances (known as "Frankie"), the youngest Gershwin child and only daughter, is born.
Early 1900s
Circa 1910
Ira's emerging personality is quiet and studious. He becomes an avid reader and also develops an
interest in theater (moving pictures as well as stage shows). George is more rambunctious and
misbehaves frequently. He describes his first awareness of music as hearing Rubinstein's
Melody in F at a penny arcade in Harlem (circa 1904), and he credits a performance of
Dvořák's Humoresque (circa 1908) by schoolmate-violinist Maxie Rosenzweig (later, Max
Rosen) as having "opened the world of music" to him.
The family acquires a piano, with the expectation that Ira will continue piano lessons begun a short
time before under the tutelage of Rose's sister, Kate Wolpin. George surprises his family by
demonstrating keyboard ability, acquired by experimenting on the player piano at the home of
a friend. George begins piano lessons, while the plans for Ira's continued study are discarded.
The details of George's early piano instruction remain uncertain and accounts disagree.
George's first lessons may have been with an unnamed neighborhood teacher for a short time,
then with a Mrs. Louis Greene, and followed by a period under a Hungarian band leader and
operetta conductor named Von Zerly.
1910-1914 Ira attends Townsend Harris Hall high school. In 1913, he and Isadore Hochberg (later, lyricist E.
Y. "Yip" Harburg) write the "Much Ado" column for the school's literary magazine, the
Academic Herald. In October 1913, Ira is listed as one of the publication's four art editors.
1912 George enters the High School of Commerce.
1912-1913 George begins attending concerts by the likes of Leopold Godowsky, Josef Lhévinne, Leo
Ornstein, and Efrem Zimbalist during his freshman year in high school.
Circa 1913-1918
Circa 1913
George's first important piano teacher is Charles Hambitzer, who George will describe as "the first
great musical influence in my life." Lessons probably begin in early 1913 and continue until
Hambitzer's death in 1918, although how frequently, particularly in the later years, is not
certain.
George composes his earliest known songs, to lyrics by Leonard Praskins: Ragging the Traumerei
and Since I Found You (now lost). Sources disagree as to which song was first, although
Ragging the Traumerei is widely accepted as George's earliest surviving composition.
1914-1916 Ira attends the City College of New York, majoring in English. In November 1915 he and Yip
Harburg begin writing a column for The Campus, the City College weekly journal titled,
"Gargoyle Gargles," signed by "Yip and Gersh."
1914, Mar. 21 George makes his first documented appearance as a pianist on a concert program presented by the
Finley Club, the literary society of the City College of New York, performing an original tango
and accompanying a singer.
1914 May Fifteen-year-old George, already skilled at sight-reading and transposing, leaves the High School
of Commerce to become a piano pounder at Jerome H. Remick and Company, at a salary of
$15 per week.
1914, Sept. 26 Ira's first publication in a commercial newspaper, the New York Mail, is credited to "Gersh."
George and Ira Gershwin Collection 6