William Bolcom, piano
Side One (15:24)
1. Tom Turpin (18737-1922): A Rag-time Nightmare (March and Two Step) (1900) (1 :18)
2. Scott Joplin (1868-1917): The Easy Winners (A Rag Time Two Step) (1901) (3 :32)
3. Scott Joplin-Louis Chauvin (1883-1908): Heliotrope Bouquet (A Slow Drag Two Step) (1907) (4:05)
4, Joseph F. Lamb (1887-1960): Ethiopia Rag (1909) (3:38)
5. James Scott (1886-1936): Pegasus (A Classic Rag) (1919) (2:30)
Side Two (17:04)
4. Scott Joplin: Wall Street Rag (1909) (4:16)
3. William Bolcom (b. 1938): Graceful Ghost (1970) (4:04)
. William Bolcom: Seabiscuits (1967) (3:12)
5. William Albright (b. 1944)- William Bolcom: Brass Knuckles (1969) (3:29)
The American Declaration of Independence did not confer cultural
liberation from the Old World. But by.1876—with our first hundred
years hailed by a laudably chauvinistic Centennial Exposition in Phil-
adelphia—America began to show herself to be far more than just a
dutiful echo of England and France.
Walt Whitman had already sounded his “barbaric yawp” over the
rooftops of the world. A young Louis Sullivan was soon.to set archi-
tecture soaring on wings of steel. Thomas Eakins and Albert Ryder
had been defying the American painting academy’s aping of Europe.
Yet our music still languished in the old imported chains.
In the two decades following the Centennial we reached the limits
of our physical frontiers. It was then, in 1896, that American music
gave notice that it too had come of age. A young Kentuckian, Ben
Harney, sat down unheralded at the piano on the stage of Tony
Pastor’s Theater in New York. His nimble hands flew into action: the
left a steady gallop, the right throwing in chords and runs in a gay,
compelling, crazy, intoxicating, syncopated rhythm. When he had
finished, the startled storm of applause announced the advent—to the
general public—of the first truly American music, ragtime.
In 1897, printed ragtime began with white bandleader William
Krell’s Mississippi Rag, and black Thomas Million (Tom) Turpin’s
Harlem Rag. Here, suddenly, as if out of nowhere, was a realized
pianistic art, deftly combining beguiling melody and irresistible
rhythm, and requiring a brand-new performing skill. Where -had it
come from—this music of gentle melody and captivating charm? This
was the shocker: it came from the ‘sporting houses,” the interracial
brothels and wine-shops—a “‘miscegenation”’ of black and white musi-
cal culture. And there, seemingly, was where and how it had been
born. The brutal fact, together with the disparaging name “ragtime,”
repelled the prudish musical purists. Ragtime was the child of exile.
Because this music was born in black society, it was forced (as hap-
pened, later, with jazz) into the tenderloins of America. A whole
generation of great ragtime composers worked there, weaving threads
of native melody with the strong warp of African rhythm.
And it was in the tenderloin that the greatest of ragtime geniuses,
black Scott Joplin, wrote the first piano pieces (Original Rags and
Maple Leaf Rag) that were the keystones of his priceless contribution
to American music. By 1899, led by Ben Harney, young America was
embracing ragtime; the beautiful, “illicit” music was beginning a
remarkable creative decade. The Maple Leaf—Joplin’s Opus 1 of a
serious musical life—became a popular hit, achieving the first sheet-
music sale of a million in our history. Joplin fled the red lights, mar-
ried, and led a quiet life of secluded creativity.
Still, the embattled oldsters sneered, ‘‘Ragtime comes from sinful
places. Ergo, it is sinful music.” The establishmentarians brought up
the guns of cultural snobbery, prudery, and barely-concealed racism
against the gentle spirit ‘of ragtime. Even as foreign champions like
Debussy and Dvdrdék were hailing “the first American music,” the
American musical powers rejected it out of hand. Denied serious
acceptance, ragtime flowered in a moment of sunlight, then faded
with its generation. Stranded, the authentic core of fine ragéime
composers—Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb, and a few others—
struggled on in a kind of twilight. By 1917, when Joplin died on Wel-
fare Island, a sick and broken-hearted man, ragtime itself was dead.
And so it remained until near mid-century.
In 1950, Harriet Janis and the author of these notes published They
All Played Ragtime, the first complete chronicle of the subject. The
rediscovery of ragtime, gradually accelerating during the '50s, por-
tended a real revival. Still the establishment held off. Finally, by 1970,
a new generation of serious American musicians began to hear rag-
time with unstopped ears, judging it freshly without the old foolish
fears and biases. New rag composers such as William Bolcom, Wil-
liam Albright, Donald Ashwander, and Max Morath are now creating
a pungently personal music built on the old harmonies and quadrille-
like theme structure of rag.
The programming and recording of ragtime on classical labels
signals its acceptance at last as a‘ serious (but not solemn!) music.
After so many years of being hammered out by honky-tonk hands,
. Charles Luckeyeth Roberts (18947-1968): Pork and Beans (One Step-Two Step or Turkey Trot) (1913) (1:41)
ragtime is now being accorded the kind of performance Scott Joplin
hoped and wrote for in those days before the doors of changing fash-
ion were shut in his face, when he still could say (in his School of
Ragtime): ‘What is scurrilously called ragtime is. .. here to stay.
Syncopations are no indication of light or trashy music, and to shy
bricks at ‘hateful ragtime’ no longer passes for musical culture.”
—RUDI BLESH
THE RAGS
Tom Turpin, three-hundred-pound owner of the Rosebud Cafe in
St, Louis, was the nucleus and one of the founders of the St. Louis
ragtime style exemplified by Joplin, Scott Hayden, James Scott, and,
later, that white New Jerseyite, Joseph F. Lamb. Turpin’s published
rags, few in number, are the bread-and-butter of ragtime. Although
A. Rag-time Nightmare is more of a showpiece than most of the
others, it still embodies that primitive forthrightness that is his hall-
mark. The “nightmare” elements seem to be the “crazy chords,” such
as the diminished sevenths in the introduction and the surprise figur-
ations in the trio, or third’strain. Here, especially, note the influence
of the virtuoso banjo-pickers on piano ragtime.
On the cover of Scott Joplin’s: The Easy Winners’ 1901 edition is a
collection of athletic sporting scenes; hence the title. Next to Turpin,
Joplin’s musical arsenal seems very sophisticated indeed, with con-
trapuntal dissonances, subtle contrary motion of both hands, and an
especially masterly use of chromatic passing tones. But the two men
share the same Missouri flavor, so different from the Eastern ragtime
that would finally overshadow Joplin & Co. and become mistaken in
the popular mind as “the” ragtime..
Scott Joplin set down the first two strains of Heliotrope Bouquet
from the playing of his friend Louis Chauvin, the wastrel Creole com-
poser who has left only three written works-this being his best
known. The Frenchness of Chauvin’s harmony is in strong contrast to
Joplin’s two ending strains. (Joplin, as well as other rag composers,
often collaborated with colleagues.) Joplin’s portion of the rag is an
affectionate postcript to Chauvin’s sensuous two themes, as well as
a prophetic postscript to Chauvin himself, who was to die the next
year, barely 26 years old.
Joseph F. Lamb’s greatest thrill in life was meeting Scott Joplin in
New York and playing his own rags for him—to Joplin’s enthusiastic
approval. Very soon, Lamb was publishing rags with Joplin’s pub-
lisher, the feisty, indomitable John Stark, whose avowed purpose was
to disseminate classic ragtime, whether or not the public understood
it. Lamb’s rags are a fusion of Negro rhythm and almost Ethelbert
Nevinesque harmony: in Stark’s great trio of ragtime composers,
Lamb seems related to Joplin’s classical side, James Scott to his
rural roots. Where Lamb’s Ethiopia Rag strongly reflects Brahms and
the classical masters, Scott’s Pegasus recalls Tom Turpin’s banjo
right-hand of nearly 20 years before. The fact that Scott’s rag was
named Pegasus because of a leftover sheet-music cover reflects the
state of Stark’s dwindling fortunes as a rag publisher in 1919, and in
a few short years that cantankerous old crusader would be forced
to close shop. :
Under the guise of program music, the 1909 Wall Street Rag is one
of several masterpieces Joplin wrote the year he met and married
Lottie Stokes, after a tragically unsuccessful first marriage. Some of
the other works that year include the gentle tango, Solace; the
exquisite waltz, Pleasant Moments; and four rags, Paragon, Country
Club, the extraordinary experiment, Euphonic Sounds, as well as the
tender and haunting Wall Street. Joplin wryly marks his strains
1) Panic in Wall Street, Brokers feeling melancholy; 2) Good times
coming; 3) Good times have come; 4) Listening to the strains of
genuine negro ragtime, brokers forget their cares.
Juxtaposing Joplin’s Missouri melody with Luckey Roberts’ strident
city rhythms was deliberate: although both men lived in New York
at the time, what a difference in their music! Along with his friend
Eubie Blake, Roberts dominated the Eastern ragtime group. Unlike
NONESUCH RECORDS, 15 Columbus Circle, New York, New York 100
H-71257 (Stereo)
THE WORKS OF SCOTT JOPLIN, in two volumes, printed in facsimile of
original, editions, and edited by Vera Brodsky Lawrence, is scheduled for
publication by The New York Public Library, Fall 1971. Special introductory
material is contributed by Arna Bontemps and Rudi Blesh. ;
Volume 1: Works for Piano
Volume 2: Works for Voice (the opera Treemonisha and the songs)
The volumes will be available as a set or singly. Information concerning this
publication can be obtained from Sales Office, The New York Public Library,
Fifth Avenue & 42nd Street, New York, New York 10018.
Joshua Rifkin’s recording of 8 piano rags by Scott Joplin (Nonesuch H-71248)
includes Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, The Ragtime Dance, Gladiolus Rag,
Fig Leaf Rag, Scott Joplin’s New Rag, Euphonic Sounds, and Magnetic Rag.
They All Played Ragtime, by Rudi Blesh and Harriet Janis, originally pub-
lished New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950, has recently been issued in a fourth
revised edition, New York: Oak Publications, 1971.
many other composers of the “shout” style, both Blake and Roberts
show a harmonic invention equal to their sheer athletic brilliancy.
In St. Louis ragtime one is enjoined to stick pretty closely to the
written note; with the Eastern writers one is enjoined not to: the
score is merely a point of departure.
Scott Joplin is to me the Chopin of America. His classic rag suc-
cessfully fuses serious and popular elements—a marriage that has
always bred great music. Caught with rag fever, I began writing them.
I tried to quit—-wrote a Last Rag—but couldn't, and have composed 17
or so since 1967. Writing rags today is like picking up a lost thread:
after nearly a century of expansion in musical technology, much of it
necessary, it is creatively refreshing to rediscover the simple har-
monies and just plain modesty of the rag form. Though there are
some new harmonies in the rags now being written, most of the mate-
rial is consciously of another time and place. Yet the intent is not
cheap nostalgia. ‘But there aren’t any new harmonies! no new tech-
nical means! the same tempo, key, and 2/4 signature throughout! you
use tonality! you’re not keeping abreast of the advances of musical
science!’ To such a protest, we reply graciously, “That’s right. Any
fool can see that.”
Graceful Ghost is a reminiscence of my father. In it, I have tried to
imagine an extension of Louis Chauvin’s gentle French-Creole quality.
Seabiscuits recalls Clarence Woods and Zez Confrey, with a few
twists of my own such as the opening of the trio—which sounds like
an introduction and turns into.a theme. My friend and co-ragger
William Albright and I put together Brass Knuckles as a kind of joke,
as an antidote to the over-delicate rags we were both composing at
the time. The score is dotted with markings like “Brutal!’'—Loutish!”
—Dust Your Knuckles!” I wrote the first two tunes, Bill the rest.
—WILLIAM BOLCOM
Born in Seattle in 1938, William Bolcom entered the University of
Washington School of Music at age 11, studying composition with
John Verrall and George McKay and piano with Berthe Poncy Jacob-
son. In 1958, he began study with Darius Milhaud, first at Mills Col-
lege, California, and later at the Paris Conservatoire. He holds a
Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stanford University.
In 1963, Bolcom’s opera for actors, Dynamite Tonite (written with
Arnold Weinstein), was premiered in New York at the Actors Studio
Theater, winning an American Academy of Arts and Letters award.
Other prizes include two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller
grant, a William and Noma Copley award, and the Kurt Weill Founda-
tion Award, He has taught music at the University of Washington and
at Queens College, N.Y., and has been Composer in Residence at the
Yale Drama School and the NYU Theater Arts Program. Among his
many compositions are Sessions I-IV for chamber ensembles, 12
Etudes for piano, a group of Unpopular Songs, and Black Host for
organ, percussion, and tape. *
on the cover, center: Scott Joplin; clockwise from lower left: Luckey
Roberts, Tom Turpin, Louis Chauvin, Joseph F. Lamb, James Scott;
1, & r. foreground: William Bolcom, William Albright
engineering/Henry J. Root » musical supervision/William Albright *
a Dolby-system recordings tape editing/Joanna Nickrenz (Elite Record-
ings,Inc.) * mastering/Robert C. Ludwig (Sterling Sound, Inc.).* co-
ordinator/Teresa Sterne « cover art/Saul Lambert « art direction &
cover design/Robert L. Heimall « Printed in U.S.A.
© Copyright 1971 by
Nonesuch Records « 15 Columbus Circle New York, N.Y. 10023
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