Jonathan Knapp replies to Andrei Jorza:

>>There is quite a nice part in Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue somewhere at
>>about 8 min 15 seconds that very much resembles Tschaikowsky' music.
>
>I'm sure the "European" or "Germanic" influence comes from Gershwin's
>attempts to be taken more seriously.

Don't forget that these were the composers Gershwin, who had studied
classical piano, knew.  He was also someone who was enormously curious
about music and who listened to everybody he could:  Berlin, Kern,
Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Les Six, Debussy, and Ravel among the
moderns.  The opening of An American in Paris, for example, paraphrases
the first of Poulenc's Mouvements perpetuelles.

Steve Schwartz