Like every musician before him, George Gershwin was the product of his age, a reflection of his predecessors and a prophet of what would follow. In his latest Keyboard Conversation marking his debut appearance at the Hylton Center’s Merchant Hall, Jeffrey Siegel considers the man regarded as America’s greatest popular composer. He opens with “Rialto Ripples Rag,” Gershwin’s first opus, published at age 18. The ragtime rage started by Scott Joplin consumed Tin Pan Alley in the early 1900s, but 50 years earlier the nation embraced its first popular pianist/composer, Louis Moreau Gottschalk. His music ranged in style from sentimental and melancholy to nationalistic. The latter is best represented in his patriotic piece “The Union,” a declaration of his support for the North during the Civil War.

Between Gottschalk and Gershwin, Siegel points out, Edward MacDowell wrote melodic piano pieces evoking nostalgic moments and the beauty of nature. Every parlor pianist learned his “To a Wild Rose,” still a favorite assignment of piano teachers. By the turn of the century, however, New Orleans-inspired ragtime and jazz were consuming young composers like Gershwin and Aaron Copland. Growing up in Brooklyn, a teenage Copland proved to be just as precocious as his contemporary. His first piece, “The Cat and the Mouse,” was published at age 18.