linguistic:paraphrasing, stylistic:style_transfer
Musical portrait of New York City

Rhapsody in Blue has been interpreted as a musical portrait of early-20th-century New York City. Culture scribe Darryn King wrote in The Wall Street Journal that "Gershwin's fusion of jazz and classical traditions captures the thriving melting pot of Jazz Age New York."

Likewise, music historian Vince Giordano has opined that "the syncopation, the blue notes, the ragtime and jazz rhythms that Gershwin wrote in 1924 was really a feeling of New York City in that amazing era. The rhythm of the city seems to be in there." Pianist Lang Lang echoes this sentiment: "When I hear Rhapsody in Blue, I see the Empire State Building somehow. I see the New York Skyline in midtown Manhattan, and I already see the coffee shops Times Square."

Accordingly, the opening montage of Woody Allen 's 1979 film Manhattan features a rendition by Zubin Mehta in which quintessential New York scenes are set to the music of Gershwin's famed jazz concerto. Twenty years later, Walt Disney Pictures used the composition for the New York segment of the 1999 animated film Fantasia 2000, in which the piece lyrically frames an animated segment drawn in the style of illustrator Al Hirschfeld.