Rhapsody in Blue

A few times each year, I try to commit learning George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue.  This has gone on for a decade and I have, thus far, afforded myself the ability of delivering only the famous first measure, barely one quarter of a page.  The manuscript is 20+ pages long.  The excessive effort required to arrive at the mere threshold of the piece has to include a staggering amount of fear and indignation. Alas! What use is there in harboring effort upon the things that are so complex, learning them feels frustratingly unnecessary, and impossible; so difficult that their discontinuation seems like an attractive route?  Leaving aside the exceptional splendor in accomplishing things such as music like Rhapsody in Blue, or learning the sciences of geometry or physics, or making sense of the astonishing magic in books like Ulysses, learning and understanding the myriad complex things in life are adventures in and of themselves.  I think existence is enriched in this way.

This part may look easy but the entirety of Rhapsody in Blue involves some kind of finger-twisting acrobatics, migraine-inducing modulations, impossible chords, deceptive cadences, evident in Mr. Gibbons' performance below.