Porgy and Bess suite

Porgy and Bess opened in Boston on 30 September 1935 and reached Broadway on 10 October, running 124 performances and closing at a loss. Gershwin drew a concert suite from the score in 1936, giving it the title Catfish Row; it remained unpublished until 1958. Meanwhile Robert Russell Bennett assembled a different sequence in 1942 for Fritz Reiner, Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, and it is Bennett's version that most orchestras play. Gershwin died in July 1937, before either arrangement had established itself in the repertoire.