Edito de Boy WantedThese arrangements of Gershwin by Michael Finnissy do not attempt to re-create the spirit, sound or texture of Gershwin's songs as he imagine them or first heard them. Following earlier interpretations by Fred Astaire, Judy Garland and Ella Fitzgerald (rather than printed texts or authentic tin-pan-alley keyboard idioms) they personalise and re-style his melodies to suit scenarios and emotions apparently somewhat remote from those originally intended. Tempo and harmony change from fast to slow, light to dark, and vice versa. Forceful sentiments become quite docile, unbridled joy turns to melancholy. Blithe security is transformed into tense and upsetting ambiguity. Naive grows cynical. Day changes into night, and girls become boys. Surprisingly these major changes of character can issue from very slight alterations to harmony and rhythm, the simpler architecture of the original songs has usually been left unchanged. I have treated Gershwin's melodic material no differently to the way I'd treat my own, the explorations and uses of it delve into my usual - and primarily contrapuntal -tool-kit. I hope this means that his melodies are still recognisable, even if they sound as if from 'odd angles' or 'through distorting lens'. The originals are talismans; compulsively nostalgic, romantic, associated with individually significant events and places, as well as supremely evocative of America generally from the nineteen twenties to the immediate pre-war era. Post war modernism has occasionally found this 'popular' music trite and corrupting.