Catfish Row

"Catfish Row", originally entitled "A Suite from Porgy and Bess", is an orchestral work by George Gershwin based upon music from his opera Porgy and Bess. Gershwin completed the work in January 1936 and it premiered at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on January 21, 1936, with Alexander Smallens conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. It should not be confused with Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, a piece commissioned by Fritz Reiner for the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra after Gershwin's death and arranged by Robert Russell Bennett from Gershwin's score from the opera.

Gershwin divided his work into five sections:

1. Catfish Row contains the Introduction, "Jazzbo Brown's Piano Blues" which was cut from the opera until 1976 (a discordant development of the overture theme), and the first iteration of "Summertime" with a short coda.
2. Porgy Sings contains two of Porgy's arias: "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin'" and "Bess, You Is My Woman Now" bridged by a cello solo.
3. Fugue contains the dark, atonal music from the murder of Crown in Act III scene 1.
4. Hurricane features the music from the hurricane sequence (12 more measures than the R. R. Bennett Porgy and Bess "Symphonic Picture" medley).
5. Good Morning, Brother contains much of the cut material from the end of the opera, as well as the final song, "Oh, Lawd, I'm on My Way".

References

• Jablonski, Edward. Gershwin: A Biography. Garden City, New Jersey: Doubleday & Company, 1987. ISBN 0-7924-2164-7