John McArthur Piano

The Great American Songbook is a collection representing many of the best and most enduring songs of the 20th Century, drawing from American jazz standards to popular songs and show tunes.

It’s no surprise that we still hear from that collection - albeit with less frequency than we used to - and it’s also no surprise that many of these cherished songs are about love.

George Gershwin is one of the greatest composers of The Great American Songbook. He composed Embraceable You in 1928 and published the work two years later for use in the Broadway musical Girl Crazy. The song became an instant hit.

Twenty-four years later, in 1954, pianist Earl Wild composed a collection of piano transcriptions he called “etudes”, based on seven of George Gershwin’s songs - including Embraceable You.

Wild’s Embraceable You is written in a highly virtuosic style and played as a dazzling showpiece with cascades of notes that surround an elegant and direct melody. 

Mr. Wild often said to John McArthur (always with a twinkle in his eyes) that he “just added curtains and draperies” to Gershwin’s melody.

A MOMENT IN TIME

McArthur has played the complete set of Wild’s etudes in concerts over the years - always leaning into their spectacular virtuosity. 

But at the time of this recording of “Embraceable You”, he described an internal paradigm shift occurring, which resulted in this particular performance of the piece:

“My interpretation in this recording is more intimate than virtuosic...more a wish than an emphatic, declarative statement”
- John McArthur
He continues:

To be sure, both perspectives are valid…and while most of the recordings and performances of this piece are the latter, this recording's halcyon tranquility speaks in a particular way.  In the studio, in one moment of time, it emerged..and it asked to be shared.

As a pianist, creating the mood of this piece led to specific choices in sculpting the sound. The hands were made to be more flat, with less rounding of the fingers, so that fingertips were engaged with the keys producing a rounded sound. The overall pace has been slackened slightly to “expand” time…intentionally avoiding any hint of frenetic energy. Even the damper pedal had to be lightened to produce a happy blending of so many notes giving the overall sound some buoyancy. 

The American actress and singer, Doris Day, was my touchpoint in the approach to this interpretation - but her colleague, Mel Torme (aka the “velvet fog”) was not far behind in my mind. As in so many song transcriptions, the lyrics led the playing in honor of both singer and song.”

AN ARTISTIC COLLABORATION

Skylight Arts commissioned illustrator Xiao Hua Yang (The New Yorker, Buzzfeed, Harper’s Magazine, The New York Times) to create original cover art for Embraceable You, providing another doorway to the varied experiences of Love that resonate with the mood of John's performance.

John, Xiao, and producer Peter Field met to share ideas and areas of resonance between Xiao’s evocative illustrations and John’s approach to this recording. Conversation soon became a sense of connection between two artists whose work often emerges and evolves in solitude.
“John’s interpretation of Embraceable You carries a rich depth of emotion...layered, nuanced, never bound to just one feeling”
- Xiao Hua Yang
Xiao continues:

My illustration is meant to echo that, as I sought to capture the same complexity: joyful, yet touched with the slightest melancholy; a sense of longing intertwined with hesitation; warm, yet wistful; intimate, yet reflective.”

To both artists the recording and illustration now feel woven together in a reflection on the many ways we encounter and remember Love.

We invite you to enjoy Embraceable You

...on Spotify

... on Apple Music

... on Deezer

... on YouTube Music