By Strauss

Written towards the end of George and Ira Gershwin’s joint career – for    Freedman and Hart’s revue “The show is on” at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, in 1936 – By Strauss is one of their most sophisticated collaborations. After an introductory (and probably unconscious) allusion to the Ravel’s Valses nobles et sentimentales, it takes flight in a waltz tune with authentically Viennese rhythmic verve and melodic appeal. Though not immediately successful, it owes much of its later popularity to its performance by Gene Kelly and Oscar Levant in the 1951 film “An American in Paris.”