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Ira Gershwin (born Israel Gershowitz) (December 6
1896 –  August 17 1983) was an American
lyricist who collaborated with his younger
brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some
of the most memorable songs of the 20th century.

With George he wrote more than a dozen Broadway
shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm,"
"Embraceable You," "The Man I Love" and "Someone
to Watch Over Me", and the opera Porgy and Bess.

After George's death he wrote further hit songs
with composers Jerome Kern ("Long Ago (And Far
Away)", Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen.

His critically-acclaimed book Lyrics on Several
Occasions of 1959, an amalgam of autobiography and
annotated anthology, is an important source for
studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age
of American popular song.

He is interred in the Westchester Hills Cemetery,
Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

==Comments on the Gershwin collection at the
Library of Congress==
From Library of Congress publication (presumably
in the public domain, as are all US Govt.
publications)
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9809/gershwin.html

The music of George and Ira Gershwin runs deep in
the American consciousness. The opening clarinet
glissando from Rhapsody in Blue, the taxi horn
theme from An American in Paris and the songs
— "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "The
Man I Love," "Someone to Watch Over Me,"
"Fascinating Rhythm," and many others — are
instantly recognizable. Mere mention of the name
"Gershwin" brings to mind the sophisticated
glamour of the '20s and '30s, personified by the
brothers who helped to give those decades their
musical voice.

But if the Gershwins symbolize a time, their music
and words transcend it. The proliferating
performances and recordings of their music testify
to its enduring popularity, and George and Ira
continue to be the subjects of both popular and
scholarly study. 

Ira Gershwin was a joyous listener to the sounds
of the modern world.  He noted in a diary: "Heard
in a day: An elevator's purr, telephone's ring,
telephone's buzz, a baby's moans, a shout of
delight, a screech from a `flat wheel,' hoarse
honks, a hoarse voice, a tinkle, a match scratch
on sandpaper, a deep resounding boom of dynamiting
in the impending subway, iron hooks on the
gutter."

The George and Ira Gershwin Collection in the
Library of Congress is the world's preeminent body
of primary source materials for the study of the
life and work of the Gershwins. Chief in
importance is the music — that written by
George and Ira together, as well as songs composed
by George and Ira with other collaborators, and
George's concert pieces. There are orchestrations,
piano-vocal scores, sketches, lyric sheets and
librettos — much of it in the handwriting of
the Gershwins. 

George's beautiful manuscript full score for Porgy
and Bess conveys his care in creating the opera
and the importance he attached to it. Song
manuscripts with erasures and corrections present
the youthful composer whom Edward Jablonski has
called the "Jazz Age Meteor." Similarly, Ira's
lyric sheets, with experimental rhymes, unused
couplets and various corrections, show us
Jablonski's "Contemplative Craftsman." No fewer
than 17 pages of lyric drafts survive for the Ira
Gershwin-Jerome Kern classic "Long Ago (And Far
Away)." Also included are the so-called Secaucus
manuscripts (scores and lyric sheets found in a
Secaucus, N. J., Warner Bros. warehouse), George's
harmony exercises, and eight of his musical
sketchbooks.

The cast of Porgy and Bess is pictured during the
first week of the show's Boston tryout, prior to
its Broadway opening, 10 October 1935 (photo by
Richard Tucker); original cover art for Gershwin
compositions reflected styles from Jazz to Art
Deco.

The expanding Gershwin Collection includes a
wealth of correspondence that provides details of
the brothers' lives and personalities.
Twenty-four-year-old George (1898-1937) writes to
Ira (1896-1983) from London on his first trip
abroad: "When I reached shore, a woman reporter
came up to me and asked for a few words. I felt
like I was composer Jerome Kern or somebody." To
longtime friend Mabel Schirmer in 1936, George
reports: "Of course, there are depressing moments
too, when talk of Adolf Hitler|Hitler and his gang
creep into the conversation. For some reason or
other the feeling out here in California is even
more acute than in the East." To Emily Paley,
sister of Ira's wife, Leonore, George writes:
"Stravinsky and Mother got on famously. Isn't
Hollywood wonderful?"

Ira's letters concentrate on his work: lyric
writing and attending to matters Gershwin.
Particularly informative is his correspondence
with impresario and biographer Merle Armitage and
composer Kurt Weill, with whom he worked on Lady
in the Dark. Ira always shows literary finesse and
meticulous attention to detail. He comments to
Weill: "Naturally, I'm interested in anything you
think might be the basis of a show that is at once
novel and entertaining and yet commercial." He
responded to an article by music critic Albert
Goldberg: "I lived with my brother at the time he
was composing Rhapsody and he was about as
influenced by  Darius Milhaud's ballet Creation of
the World as by Frescobaldi's Chaconne and
Passacaglia or Patagonian Bebop." Reserved as he
was, Ira never hesitated to set the record
straight regarding his brother's work.

The pictorial material in the collection includes
many photographs of George and Ira and other
members of their family and circle of friends. The
brothers' skill in the visual arts is generously
represented in the collection. Among the
photographs are some 20 images taken by George,
including exceptional portraits of Irving Berlin
and Leonore Gershwin. As well, there are paintings
and drawings by both George and Ira, including
George's portrait of Arnold Schoenberg and a
self-portrait oil painting of each brother.

The scrapbooks, which number 34 volumes, record
the Gershwin story as it was chronicled by the
contemporary press. Book 1 begins in 1913 with a
number of poems and other short pieces that Ira
wrote for and published in the Townsend Harris
Hall high school Academic Herald, of which he was
co-editor with lyricist Yip Harburg|E. Y. "Yip"
Harburg. The scrapbooks continue until early 1986,
2-1/2 years after Ira's death, and cover projects
that Ira had worked on. Seven books are devoted
solely to Porgy and Bess; another book, to Ira's
memoirs, Lyrics on Several Occasions; and two
others, to fellow composers and lyricists,
performers and the music industry in general.
There is also a scrapbook of obituaries and
editorials assembled after George's death by his
mother, Rose Gershwin, and two scrapbooks compiled
by the adolescent George and Ira: George's deals
chiefly with music and Ira's, with topics of
general interest.

The legal and financial papers comprise contracts,
business correspondence, royalty statements and
bank statements, including a large cache of papers
received in 1997 from the estate of Emanuel
Alexandre, Rose Gershwin's attorney. As well,
there are programs, posters, scores from George's
music library, the drafts and printer's galleys of
Ira's Lyrics on Several Occasions, scripts for
radio broadcasts, other biographical texts and the
Congressional Gold Medals that were struck in
honor of the brothers Gershwin and their
contribution to American life and culture.

On the set of Shall We Dance, 1936, are dance
director Hermes Pan, Fred Astaire, director Mark
Sandrich, Ginger Rogers, George Gershwin, Ira
Gershwin and musical director Nathaniel Shilkret.

That this collection should be housed in the
Library of Congress is the result of the interest
and efforts of several people, foremost Ira and
Leonore Gershwin. After George's death in 1937,
Ira worked hard to organize his brother's
documentary legacy. Early on, he recognized the
importance of preserving George's music for future
generations.  But, with characteristic modesty, he
was slow to be convinced of the value of his own
papers. 

Still, he organized and preserved his lyric sheets
along with George's music manuscripts and the
correspondence, photographs and other documents
that became the core of the Gershwin Collection.

The development of the collection at the Library
traces its beginnings to a 1939 exchange of
letters between Ira Gershwin and Harold Spivacke,
then chief of the Music Division. The first item
that Ira gave to the Library was George's sketch
for "The Crap Shooter's Song" from Porgy and Bess,
acknowledged on May 24 of that year. In 1953 came
the manuscripts of the large-scale works,
including Porgy and Bess, Rhapsody in Blue, An
American in Paris, and the Concerto in F from the
estate of George and Ira's mother, Rose. These
were followed by generous gifts from various other
members of the Gershwin family and their friends,
including the Gershwins' sister, Frances Gershwin
Godowsky; their brother, Arthur Gershwin;
sister-in-law, Judy Gershwin; nephews, Marc George
Gershwin, Leopold Godowsky III and Michael
Strunsky; cousins, Daniel Botkin and Dorothy
Botkin Rosenthal; and friends Joseph Schillinger,
Mabel Schirmer, Albert Sirmay, Kay Swift and
Rosamond Walling Tirana.

During the 1950s, '60s and '70s, Ira Gershwin made
periodic donations to the Library of manuscripts
and other materials — along with his
detailed descriptions of many of the items. The
importance of this commentary, virtually unknown
in other archival collections, can scarcely be
overstated. From time to time, Ira purchased items
for the Gershwin Collection, and his interest in
the collection continued until his death in 1983.
In the course of the next eight years, Leonore
Gershwin sustained and expanded her husband's
efforts on behalf of the collection and the
Library. In 1987 she donated the remainder of the
music manuscripts and lyric sheets from their
home; on a number of occasions she, too, purchased
music manuscripts and correspondence for the
collection. Since her death, her very generous
bequest has enabled the Library to acquire
additional materials, including the files relating
to Porgy and Bess from the archives of the Theatre
Guild.

George and Ira Gershwin enriched millions of
people with unforgettable music and lyrics. Those
forward-looking and generous individuals who have
supported the establishment and continuing growth
of the Gershwin Collection in the Library of
Congress have seen to it that generations to come
will also enjoy the Gershwin legacy.

==Further reading==
*Ira Gerswhin - Lyrics on Several Occasions: a
selection of stage and screen lyrics written for
sundry situations and now arranged in arbitrary
categories, to which have been added many
informative annotations and disquistions on their
why and wherefore, their whom-for, their how, and
matters associative (1959)

==External links==
* http://www.gershwinfan.com/
* http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/9809/gershwin.html

Porgy