This week:
Scott Joplin - The Complete Rags, Marches, Waltzes & Songs - Guido Nielsen
This set is four discs, and I am particularly busy this week, so it will probably take me most of the week to listen to all of the music, but after listening to just the first disc so far I can say this is easily the best recorded Joplin I have ever heard. Nielsen plays everything just the way I do when I play Joplin. And I don't mean to compare my meager skills at the piano to his, but it is very satisfying to finally find recordings of these works by someone who sees these works the same way I do.
Everything here is recorded on a modern, in tune grand piano. There are no rhythmic oddities or pointless improvisations. Tempos are perfect, in my opinion. Swift, but not, as Joplin warns against in his scores, too fast. (I think we often misunderstand this instruction these days and play the rags in a tempo that drags). So many attempts at a complete Joplin, like Richard Zimmerman's well-known set, fail at one or more of these points.
I don't know how Joplin is regarded in Europe, but his music is appreciated here in the USA, at least since the 70s. I find that his music is just a lot of fun to play, and I have had piano students who I just could not get excited about anything else get very enthusiastic about learning to play a Joplin rag or two.
Joplin certainly elevated the style, and these Guido Nielsen recordings treat the music with the seriousness it deserves without losing the fun in them. They will have a place of honor on my shelf next to the Joshua Rifkin disc. My only complaints about the set are 1) that it does not include the "School of Ragtime", which is understandable since it is basically an exercise, but it would have been nice to include it for completeness (Zimmerman's set includes it) and 2) the fact that the songs are piano-only, with no singer, which is also understandable since many of the lyrics would be considered wildly inappropriate/offensive today, but...it was what it was, and I think it would be worth something as a picture of the times to present them as they are.
Scott Joplin - The Complete Rags, Marches, Waltzes & Songs - Guido Nielsen
This set is four discs, and I am particularly busy this week, so it will probably take me most of the week to listen to all of the music, but after listening to just the first disc so far I can say this is easily the best recorded Joplin I have ever heard. Nielsen plays everything just the way I do when I play Joplin. And I don't mean to compare my meager skills at the piano to his, but it is very satisfying to finally find recordings of these works by someone who sees these works the same way I do.
Everything here is recorded on a modern, in tune grand piano. There are no rhythmic oddities or pointless improvisations. Tempos are perfect, in my opinion. Swift, but not, as Joplin warns against in his scores, too fast. (I think we often misunderstand this instruction these days and play the rags in a tempo that drags). So many attempts at a complete Joplin, like Richard Zimmerman's well-known set, fail at one or more of these points.
I don't know how Joplin is regarded in Europe, but his music is appreciated here in the USA, at least since the 70s. I find that his music is just a lot of fun to play, and I have had piano students who I just could not get excited about anything else get very enthusiastic about learning to play a Joplin rag or two.
Joplin certainly elevated the style, and these Guido Nielsen recordings treat the music with the seriousness it deserves without losing the fun in them. They will have a place of honor on my shelf next to the Joshua Rifkin disc. My only complaints about the set are 1) that it does not include the "School of Ragtime", which is understandable since it is basically an exercise, but it would have been nice to include it for completeness (Zimmerman's set includes it) and 2) the fact that the songs are piano-only, with no singer, which is also understandable since many of the lyrics would be considered wildly inappropriate/offensive today, but...it was what it was, and I think it would be worth something as a picture of the times to present them as they are.
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