It should not be confused with Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Picture, scored at the behest of Fritz Reiner by Robert Russell Bennett in 1942, five years after George Gershwin’s death, and premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1943.
Catfish Row is scored for two flutes (the second doubling piccolo), two oboes (the second doubling English horn), four clarinets in B-Flat (the fourth doubling bass clarinet in B-Flat), one bassoon, three French horns in F, three trumpets in B-Flat, two trombones, one tuba; a percussion section that includes timpani, drum set, xylophone, cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, tubular bells, tom-tom, wood block, suspended cymbal, glockenspiel and triangle; one piano; one banjo and strings[1] Gershwin conducted all of the ensuing performances before his death in 1937, and many scholars have pronounced it unperformed and virtually forgotten until its March 1958 rediscovery by Ira Gershwin's secretary, Lawrence D. Stewart.
In 1958, Ira Gershwin decided to re-title the work "Catfish Row" to distinguish it from Robert Russell Bennett's medley, though its first (1959) recording, by the Utah Symphony, nonetheless used the original title.
On September 22, 2013, it was announced that a musicological critical edition of the full orchestral score will be eventually released.
[2][3][4] Some recordings (such as a January 1990 recording by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a December 2014 performance by the New York Philharmonic) include extra incidental music from the opera in the third and fifth movements, it is unknown if the critical edition score will include this material.