"Oh, So Nice!" is a song composed by George Gershwin, with lyrics by Ira Gershwin.
George Gershwin described the song as an effort "to get the effect of a Viennese waltz in foxtrot time" with Ira relating that the lyric took "days and days" to write due to its many internal rhymes. Ira felt the song was a "waltz effect in foxtrot" with "short and definite" musical phrases.[1]
The song was introduced by Gertrude Lawrence and Paul Frawley as the characters Ann Wainwright and Neil Forrester in the 1928 musical Treasure Girl, where it was featured as a duet in the first act.[1][2] It is sung when the characters encounter each other for the first time in the musical, the pair having formerly been lovers.[3] Lawrence Delbert Stewart, writing in The Gershwins: Words Upon Music, wrote that "Oh, So Nice!" was "so lovely...that one finds it difficult to believe that Miss Lawrence's role portrayed her as a malicious liar and a spoiled young woman".[1] Walter Rimler, in his A Gershwin Companion: A Critical Inventory & Discography describes the verse as "evocative and beautiful".[4] The New Yorker magazine described it as "effortlessly lovely" in 1959.[5] Howard Pollack felt the song was reminiscent of the Gershwin's earlier songs "Clap Yo' Hands" and "Let's Kiss and Make Up" through its attempt to capture a Viennese waltz in to a foxtrot tempo.[3] Pollock praised the song's "unprecedented suavity" with its "subtle metrical shifts throughout its main theme".[3] Pollock felt the melody of "Oh, So Nice!" was reminiscent of "Ohne mich" from Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.[3]
Edward Jablonski felt that it was one of the "outstanding songs" from Treasure Girl along with "I've Got a Crush on You", "I Don't Think I'll Fall in Love Today" and "Where's the Boy?".[6]
Notable recordings
edit- Ella Fitzgerald - Ella Fitzgerald Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook (Verve, 1959)
- Betty Comden (with pianist Richard Lewine) - Remember These: Songs from Treasure Girl and Chee-Chee (Ava, 1963)[7]
References
edit- ^ a b c Lawrence Delbert Stewart (1959). The Gershwins: Words Upon Music. Verve Records. p. 44.
- ^ Dan Dietz (10 April 2019). The Complete Book of 1920s Broadway Musicals. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 491. ISBN 978-1-5381-1282-3.
- ^ a b c d Howard Pollack (15 January 2007). George Gershwin: His Life and Work. University of California Press. p. 426. ISBN 978-0-520-93314-9.
- ^ Walter Rimler (1991). A Gershwin Companion: A Critical Inventory & Discography, 1916-1984. Popular Culture, Ink. p. 91. ISBN 978-1-56075-019-2.
- ^ The New Yorker. 1959. p. 134.
- ^ Edward Jablonski (1962). George Gershwin. Putnam. p. 156.
- ^ Norbert Carnovale (2000). George Gershwin: A Bio-bibliography. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-313-26003-2.