I Loves You, Porgy

[7] Musicologist Lawrence Starr writes, "she possesses profound self-understanding, and understanding of others, and yet cannot use this knowledge to really help herself do anything more than survive (which of course is already more than Carmen or Marie).

"[7] After the folk-opera's premiere, Duke Ellington said "The times are here to debunk Gershwin's lampblack Negroisms", which was seconded by Ralph Matthews of the Baltimore Afro-American: "The singing, even down to the choral and ensemble numbers, has a conservatory twang.

"[4] Edward D. Latham contends that Gershwin's experimental use of simple rondo form with the main theme as the refrain echoes the tension between Porgy and Bess in the duet, "It is as if Bess is clinging to the refrain for dear life, afraid that if she wanders too far from it, she will lose Porgy's love for good.

Once again, it is Porgy who guides Bess back to the home key, re-establishing F major with a half cadence at the end of the B and C sections.

[5] Sarah Tomlinson claimed "while 'I Loves You, Porgy' was one of eleven tracks on her album, it was the only song that had previously been popularised by black women musicians.

[15] Whilst the folk opera has received criticism that Gershwin biographer Rodney Greenberg describes as a questioning of whether the characters are "the same old black stereotypes with their naive superstitions, their whoring and their gambling?

[17] Hall Johnson, who was outspoken on his disagreement with the opera's recitatives, found Bess' duet to be "such vibrant beauty, so replete with the tragedy of the minor spirituals, that most of what follows is made to sound a little more false by reason of the absolute rightness of this episode".