Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

*** This title is a reissue of a Japanese release with liner notes in Japanese. ***

JOPLIN Complete Rags, Marches, Waltzes • William Albright, (pn) • NIMBUS 2546/8 (3 CDs: 211:40)


William Albright was a major figure in the ragtime revival, along with his friend and colleague in academia, William Bolcom. Together they recorded music of Joplin and James P. Johnson; separately, each composed and played many rags on his own, which they sent to the other for amusement and comment. These were recorded as well, though Albright’s album of his own rags is sadly no longer in print. It’s a pity, as he was a fine pianist with a strong technique, and a fine sense of style. That technique and especially the style are on display in this fine set of Joplin’s rags, marches, and waltzes, recorded over a four-day period in 1989 for the defunct MusicMasters label.


No collection of Joplin, of course, can claim to be truly complete. Some rags almost certainly went unpublished, and it is believed others might have been published under pseudonyms. What we have are 49 works definitely by Joplin or composed by him in collaboration with others. They span The Crush Collision March of 1896 to the Magnetic Rag of 1914, his last composition before tertiary syphilis killed him. A third and separate category is formed of doubtful attributions, rags that would have been credited to Joplin at the height of his evanescent fame, much in the spirit that French and Dutch music publishers in the final quarter of the 18th century produced far more string quartets and symphonies by Haydn than Haydn ever wrote. None of these apocrypha are offered here, save one, a curious piece, the Silver Swan Rag , included on stylistic grounds. Discovered in 1970, and twice performed on piano rolls from the 1914–1915 period, it is credited to Joplin, but shows some notable flaws of compositional technique. Albright surmises in his liner notes that it was probably an early work, held back for years, but we’ll likely never know why Joplin would have chosen to record it, if he did, since other, finer works of his were at his fingertips.


Albright avoids an anachronistic, speed demon approach that would be more appropriate to latterday stride pianists such as James P. Johnson or Willie “The Lion” Smith. Nor does he break heavily in such pieces as The Entertainer or the beautiful Weeping Willow for nostalgia addicts. Rhythmically firm, he avoids sudden shifts of tempo, preferring to maintain a steady pace or subtly accelerate through the four strains of a standard rag. His dynamic palette is broad, though he applies variation sparingly once again. Clarity of touch does not preclude beauty of tone, as The Cascades shows. Albright takes obvious enjoyment in the music he is playing.


Potential buyers might want to note that this is not “purist” Joplin, though it is perhaps all the more authentic for not exactly following the published scores. Like an earlier Joplin enthusiast and performer, “Knocky” Parker, Albright sometimes improvises or alters—though always more tastefully than the erratic Parker, who devalued these works by sometimes coining his own additional melodic lines. Albright’s most frequent type of change is the double-dotting of the thematic content, something he applies for example to the B section of Easy Winners , instead of playing it straight as written. Elsewhere, he may perform chords off the beat instead of the written figurations on it, as in the B section of The Maple Leaf Rag ; or strum a figure before the introductory chords to the A section repeat, as in The Entertainer ; or vary the repeat of a few D section chords in a blues direction, as in Elite Syncopations . The results are a matter of brief, tasteful highlights, and typical of the way rags were lightly embellished (by all reports) during and after Joplin’s lifetime.


With good notes by Albright and fine sound, it’s great to see this recording rereleased by a major classical label. Hopefully, it will bring new attention to both the composer and pianist—and maybe lead to Albright’s performance of his own rags showing up once again. Strongly recommended.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

No better Joplin cycle exists, and its first complete appearance on CD is long overdue.

Between January and April 1975, the classically trained, multi-award-winning jazz pianist and composer Dick Hyman – whose astounding résumé includes playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker and Benny Goodman, writing and arranging for Count Basie, and scoring most of the films of Woody Allen – went into RCA’s Studio A in New York City and set down the definitive recording of ragtime legend Scott Joplin’s piano works. In 1988, an hour-long selection from the five LPs was released on CD. Now at last, Sony Classical is issuing Hyman’s entire Joplin album on three well-filled silver discs.

This really is Joplin’s complete piano output. It even includes the six short exercises that form his 1908 School of Ragtime, with their printed prefatory remarks read by the 92-year-old Eubie Blake, a friend of Joplin and a distinguished ragtime player in his own right. Also here are Joplin’s less familiar marches and waltzes. And there’s a bonus: the set contains Hyman’s own twelve delightful improvisations on themes by Joplin, which he designed to demonstrate the composer's influence on the development of jazz harmony and melody. When the LPs were first released, Gramophone’s jazz critic wrote that “the eminently musical quality of Hyman’s playing is in evidence throughout the collection; he has the ability to characterize perfectly each piece and somehow to pinpoint every little harmonic subtlety and melodic felicity without in any way detracting from the conception as a whole.... He pays as much attention to matters of tempo, texture, phrasing and dynamics as though he were doing the twenty-four Chopin Preludes. Two for instance I particularly enjoyed were Cascades with its rippling lightness of touch and Scott Joplin’s New Rag in which Hyman’s cleanness of articulation and rhythmic exuberance are a joy. … Joplin well deserves this very handsome and well-recorded tribute.”

CONTENTS:

• Maple Leaf Rag
• Original Rags
• Swipesy
• Peacherine Rag
• The Easy Winners
• Sunflower Slow Drag
• The Entertainer
• Elite Syncopations
• The Strenuous Life
• A Breeze from Alabama
• Palm Leaf Rag
• Something Doing
• Weeping Willow
• The Chrysanthemum
• The Cascades
• The Sycamore
• The Favorite
• Leola
• The Ragtime Dance
• Eugenia
• Lily Queen
• Gladiolus Rag
• Nonpareil
• Heliotrope Bouquet
• Search-light Rag
• Rose Leaf Rag
• Fig Leaf Rag
• Pine Apple Rag
• Solace
• Sugar Cane
• Stoptime Rag
• Euphonic Sounds
• Country Club
• Wall Street Rag
• Felicity Rag
• Paragon Rag
• Silver Swan Rag
• Kismet Rag
• Magnetic Rag
• Reflection Rag
• Antoinette
• Cleopha
• March majestic
• Combination March
• Rosebud
• Great Crush Collision
• School of Ragtime (Exercises Nr. 1-6)
• Bethena (Concert waltz)
• Binks' Waltz
• Pleasant Moments
• Augustan Club Waltz
• Harmony Club Waltz
• New Rag
• +Dick Hyman-Improvisation on Peacherine Rag
• The Entertainer
• Elite Syncopations
• A Breeze from Alabama
• Something Doing
• Gladiolus Rag
• Heliotrope Bouquet
• Fig Leaf Rag
• Stoptime Rag
• New Rag
• Pleasant moments

REVIEW:

The ragtime genre came into full flower from the mid-1890s through the end of World War I, spearheaded by Scott Joplin (1868-1917), whose 1899 composition Maple Leaf Rag became the template and standard bearer for classic through-composed rags. The late 1960s and early 1970s saw newfound interest in Joplin as a serious composer, starting with the New York Public Library’s publication of Joplin’s collected works. Joplin’s 1902 rag The Entertainer figured prominently in the soundtrack for the 1973 Academy Award-winning film The Sting, launching a floodgate of Joplin releases. Even classical artists as unlikely as Itzhak Perlman, James Levine, and E. Power Biggs hitched their stars to the Joplin bandwagon.

However, the most comprehensive, intelligently produced, respectful, and artistically satisfying collection of Joplin’s complete piano works came from RCA Victor in a five-LP boxed set, featuring pianist Dick Hyman. No better Joplin cycle exists, and its first complete appearance on CD is long overdue.

The music is presented by genre, with the rags arranged in loose chronological order by composition, followed by marches and waltzes. Also included is Joplin’s charming “School of Ragtime” Etudes complete with Joplin’s introductory remarks read by composer/pianist and Joplin colleague Eubie Blake, who was 92 when he faced the microphone to speak. Hyman also offers the Grand Crush Collision march both in its original text and in his own ragtime transformation.

Although Hyman’s pianism embraces the entire history of jazz piano, his effortless virtuosity is firmly rooted in classical training. As Rudi Blesh aptly stated in his brilliant and insightful original booklet annotations, the pianist “takes ragtime seriously without becoming solemn and portentous, more as one must do in approaching, say, much of Mozart.”

Two further qualities make Hyman’s Joplin stand out: his intelligent tempo choices, and his ideal fusion of classical projection and jazz time keeping. Take Joplin’s 1899 hit Maple Leaf Rag, for example. Hyman’s vigorous pace, dynamic contrasts, and clear articulation convey pure joy with a soupçon of brashness, so unlike Joshua Rifkin’s effete and rhythmically stiff traversal. The Cascades’ descending runs are as crystalline and transparent as Rubinstein’s Chopin. By contrast, Hyman’s measured tempo and ear-catching inflections of phrase in Elite Syncopations give shape and breathing room to Joplin’s polyphony.

Note, too, Hyman’s lovely legato touch and subtly lilting rubatos in Weeping Willow, Gladiolus Rag, and Solace, while Something Doing is pure lightness and effervescence. The pianist’s characterful animation keeps the episodic Bethena concert waltz afloat and moving. And although Hyman clearly respects Joplin’s texts, the pianist is not above filling out the texture with discreet octave reinforcements in the left hand, as he does in the difficult Euphonic Sounds, a rag that foreshadows elements of stride piano. Because Hyman approaches each piece on its own terms, one gleans more variety and expressive scope from Joplin’s oeuvre than we experience from most other Joplin interpreters.

The original LP edition devoted the tenth side to twelve of Hyman’s improvisations on Joplin themes, which here are spread across the three CDs, most likely for timing considerations. They are sheer delights, from The Entertainer’s bi-tonal coda to a brief and unbuttoned Peacherine Rag that brilliantly burlesques Art Tatum’s 1940 recording of Harold Arlen’s Get Happy.

A Breeze From Alabama is pure, unadulterated barrelhouse and boogie-woogie, while in Joplin’s New Rag Hyman can’t resist interpolating Juventino Rosas’ Over the Waves–better known as the summer camp ditty “George Washington Bridge”. In short, Dick Hyman and Scott Joplin unquestionably belong to the coterie of symbiotic performer/composer pairings that include Schnabel/Beethoven, Gould/Bach, Gieseking/Debussy, Larrocha/Albéniz, and Hamelin/Alkan.

Full disclosure: I met Dick Hyman nearly 60 years ago when I was eight years old, and he has been a friend, a colleague, and a musical father figure to me ever since. We even played two pianos together in several concerts. I vividly remember hearing Dick preparing these Joplin pieces at the time of the 1975 sessions, and marveled at his absolute commitment to the material, his focus and his flexibility in the process of getting all of the music under his awesome fingers. Thanks to Sony/BMG for reissuing and gorgeously remastering an important recording project that belongs in every serious collection.

-- ClassicsToday.com (10/10; Jed Distler)

Classical Music

This release is an outstanding version of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. Not only because this recording - which was orchestrated by the American composer and jazz musician Gunther Schuller in 1975 for the Houston Grand Opera - probably comes the closest to Joplin’s original intention, but also because the recording’s crisp and bright sound can now be cherished on 2 SACDs, complete with a full libretto in English.

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REVIEWS:

The cast is well balanced and convincing-interesting to hear Willard White, as Ned, well before his later triumphs--the recording, showing its age slightly, is adequate and the whole production much to be welcomed on to Compact Disc.

-- Gramophone review of original DG release on CD [8/1992]

This release is an outstanding version of Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha. Not only because this recording - which was orchestrated by the American composer and jazz musician Gunther Schuller in 1975 for the Houston Grand Opera - probably comes the closest to Joplin’s original intention, but also because the recording’s crisp and bright sound can now be cherished on 2 SACDs, complete with a full libretto in English.

– Opera

Here’s a fresh and original celebration of Scott Joplin’s piano rags performed by Alexander Peskanov. Celebrate the happy sounds of American piano music with this enjoyable collection of 14 Scott Joplin classics. These digitally-mastered selections include “Maple Leaf Rag,” “The Entertainer,” “Pineapple Rag,” “Original Rag,” “Country Club Rag,” and much more!

A winning compilation, sympathetically played. The Naxos engineers have done a pretty good job too ...

It’s not often that Hollywood can take the credit for rediscovering music but George Roy Hill’s 1973 film The Sting certainly brought the works of Scott Joplin to a wider audience. But there is so much more to Joplin than the ubiquitous Entertainer – he wrote three operas, a ballet and two orchestral works – and one can only hope that Naxos will explore his works in their entirety as part of their enterprising American Classics series (see reviews of Volume 1 of his piano rags). A new recording of Treemonisha would be especially welcome.

Joplin referred to the syncopations that characterise ragtime as ‘weird and intoxicating’ and in the right hands this music is heady indeed. Perhaps one of the best exponents of Joplin’s oeuvre is Joshua Rifkin, whose disc The Entertainer (Nonesuch 7669 79449 2) has been a long-time favourite. Texas-born pianist Benjamin Loeb – associate conductor of the El Paso Symphony Orchestra, teacher, accompanist and soloist – may be unfamiliar to most listeners but his foray into ‘ragged time’ ought to change that.

The earliest item on this recording is the Crush Collision March of 1896, a graphic, silent-film-style depiction of a train crash replete with whistle effects and colliding chords. It is a fun piece but it’s hardly vintage Joplin. The composer also went on to depict the waterfall in the Cascade Gardens at the 1904 World Fair in St. Louis.

The score of the energetic Rag-Time Dance (1899) instructs the pianist to stamp as directed, filling in the silent beats. The pianist is also urged not to ‘raise the toe from the floor while stamping’. Loeb catches the slightly frenetic mood of this two-step with nicely articulated syncopations in the right hand and suitably rhythmic thumps when required.

Swipesy – Cake Walk is a collaborative effort with Arthur Marshall (1881-1968). It has a certain elegance and Loeb makes the most of its rather repetitive material.. No such reservations about the Peacherine Rag of 1901, with its ear-catching accompaniment in the left hand. Thankfully the Naxos recording is clear and not too closely miked, which means no brittleness in the treble and a pleasing weight in the bass. The Nonesuch sound is warmer and weightier, though less analytical.

A Breeze from Alabama dates from the same year as The Entertainer (1902), with which it has more than a passing resemblance. It was a relatively happy and productive time in Joplin’s life and there is a real fluency to this and The Weeping Willow of 1903, the latter of which adds a certain wistfulness to its list of charms. Loeb seems to be alive to the subtle changes of mood in music which, in lesser hands, is apt to sound rather unvaried.

The good times didn’t last. Joplin’s marriage failed in 1904 and his second wife died of pneumonia just 10 weeks after the ceremony. In spite of these personal tragedies he carried on writing. The Cascades and The Chrysanthemum date from this period. Neither shows much sign of inner sadness, though the latter seems a little more introspective than usual. Fortunately, elegance and invention aren’t in short supply and Loeb finds a lovely spring to the melody of The Chrysanthemum (1:02 onwards).

Eugenia and The Rosebud March (both 1905) are very different. Eugenia, which Loeb launches with disarming ease, has several scale-like passages before returning to its original melody. The start of The Rosebud March is just as mellifluous, quickly turning into one of the most infectious pieces on this disc. Loeb really finds the sparkle and humour in its catchy melodies. An absolute tonic.

The Rose Leaf and Gladiolus rags date from Joplin’s move to New York in 1907. The latter, buoyant as always, seems a little more subdued than usual, but Rose Leaf is altogether more sprightly, with brighter melodies in the right hand and lighter accompaniment in the left. Technically it is more complex, florid even, and shows Joplin very much in control of his material. Once again Loeb has the measure of its rhythms and has no difficulties with the more virtuoso writing.

Stoptime Rag (1910) is equally spirited, with its right-hand pyrotechnics and foot-stompin’ accompaniment, but Joplin’s problems with his opera Treemonisha and his deteriorating mental health blighted his last years. One would hardly know it from the New Rag of 1912, although it does have a hint of melancholy in its little repeated melody in the left hand. No such ambiguity with the Magnetic Rag of 1914, which Loeb treats as the darker-hued piece that it undoubtedly is. All the usual Joplin trademarks are there but the repeated phrases seem even more haunting than before. Astonishingly, Rifkin races through the New Rag in just over three minutes to Loeb’s four. He simply ignores Joplin’s dictum that ragtime must never be played too fast and pays the price in terms of detail and general articulation. A rare lapse in what is otherwise a sophisticated and satisfying collection.

Reflections (1917) is indeed a summing up, a taking stock. Treemonisha had been a disaster and Joplin was soon to succumb to the ravages of syphilis, but despite this the music has a lucidity and grace – not to mention some brilliant touches, especially the Gottschalk-style banjo figures – that Loeb captures to perfection.

All in all a winning compilation, sympathetically played by Benjamin Loeb. The Naxos engineers have done a pretty good job too, and the booklet notes are both informative and interesting. Compared with the Rifkin disc, which contains many of the items here, Loeb’s readings come across as delightfully fresh and spontaneous. In many ways his playing is even more revealing and characterful than Rifkin’s, and that’s praise indeed.

Now, when can we expect Treemonisha?

-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International