Scott Joplin Music

My wife was looking for piano and violins...this CD had a pleasant music and tied you to the tragedy...

This recording is a must for the eclectic music lover. The artistic skills are first class. The sound in magnificent. The feeling and passion of presentation are tops. The selections are excellent. My personal favorite presentation is the use of a concert grand piano to play bass scores. Just Awesome.

You can almost hear the great ship sail, the passengers whisper as I Salonisti gives the heart of a full orchestra in their small ensemble. If you don't fall in love with 'Destiny', you don't have a heart. There is an ethereal echo in the recording that gives it a concert-hall sound, which only adds to the beauty of each song. The only (miniscule) improvement they could have made was to put the version of 'Nearer My God to Thee' they played in the movie--it had a melancholy bareness that is missing from the version on this album. Still, this is wonderful music for afternoon teas and romantic dinners--really, any time you want to escape modern life. These guys get it.

This is a wonderful album filled with an assortment of compositions that showcase the range and versatility of one of the best (if not the best) flute-playing talents ever. Rampal's performances of the Scott Joplin songs are especially bright and fun to listen to. No one else plays like Rampal, and this album proves it. Worth adding to your collection if you love good flute music, or want to learn more about it.

Rampal has the most beautiful playing style I have ever heard. Unfortunately, he wastes it here on Gershwin and Joplin. Those pieces are excellent in their own right, but they weren't written for flute, and for good reason. Even so, they might be okay on an album comprised of music within the genre, but there is no discernible common thread to all the pieces on this CD. If you want Rampal, there are plenty of other options; my personal preference is the "Best of Jean-Pierre Rampal," which also has Faure's "Berceuse" (one of my favorites), Vivaldi's "Il Cardellino," and Bach's "Sicilienne," along with several other gorgeous classical pieces.

Many reasonably sophisticated American and European musiclovers still think there are really no American classical music composers of note other than perhaps Gershwin and Copland. It is to the credit of the Naxos label, via their 'American Classics' series, that the lie is put to that notion. Each month there are new issues from Naxos containing music by American composers. And it was a brilliant idea for them to take selections from their dozens of releases of this music to put together this sampler of such music to illustrate a 100+ page essay on the subject by an eminent writer on music, Barrymore Laurence Scherer. The combination of 2 CDs of music tracks, Scherer's essay, a chronological outline, suggestions for further listening, even a map showing where various composers were born helps the 'student' learn much about our nation's musical heritage.

There are selections by twenty-eight composers stretching from the amazing Wagnerian 'Macbeth' Overture by William Henry Fry (1813-1864) to the very recent 'Rapture,' a percussion concerto by Michael Torke (b. 1961). Some selections are complete movements, others are shorter passages from larger works. Included are such gems as the first movement of Arthur Foote's Piano Quartet, the third movement of Henry Hadley's Fourth Symphony, Charles Ives's 'The Unanswered Question,' 'King Cotton' by John Philip Sousa, 'Maple Leaf Rag' by Scott Joplin, a passage (the exciting Spanish Waltz) from Walter Piston's 'The Incredible Flutist,' the finale of Copland's 'Billy the Kid,' the opening of Samuel Barber's luminous 'Knoxville - Summer of 1915,' 'Tonight' from Bernstein's 'West Side Story,' the opening of George Rochberg's masterful Violin Concerto, and John Adams's incredibly popular 'Short Ride in a Fast Machine.' Plus selections by Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Edward MacDowell, George Whitefield Chadwick, Amy Beach, Charles Tomlinson Griffes, Charles Wakefield Cadman, George Gershwin, George Antheil, Zez Confrey, William Schuman, John Cage, Gunther Schuller, Alan Hovhaness, Elliott Carter and Philip Glass. The performances are more than acceptable and in some instances ('Knoxville,' Rochberg's Violin Concerto) definitive.

I would heartily recommend this set (especially at its superbudget price) to anyone wanting to know more about the history of American classical music -- Scherer is a master of cogent, clear prose -- and wishing to hear examples of the broad range it has taken over the past couple of centuries. I can easily imagine this set being used in a music appreciation course. And I am sure it will spark interest in the newcomer to this branch of classical music.

2 CDs TT=ca. 160 mins.

Scott Morrison

This music is just exquisite. I particularly like the Barber selections. Just lovely.

The piano used for this CD is a Bosendorfer Imperial Grand, and it's pleasing to think of Joplin's music being performed by a Professor of Music on this Austrian Emperor of pianos!
Listen to the low note at the end of Augustan Club Waltz to hear a meaty sound that no other piano can produce.

These are solid, musical, very listenable performances, faithful to the music "as wrote", and really this CD belongs in the collection of anyone interested in Joplin's music.
Sometimes I feel that the left hand is perhaps a little 'light', but perhaps that's just a quibble.

The recording of the Bosendorfer here has a warm, slightly 'forward' sound that is very different from the slightly detached or recessed sound of the (still excellent) 1970s Rifkin recordings on Nonesuch.

I have three of the Dinner Classics. "Dinner For Two" "Romance"
and "A Cocktail Party" All are wonderful cd's and I would like to find more, other than what is listed here. "An American Picnic" is good but I like "Dinner For Two" the best.

This album is one of the "must haves" in the great "Masterworks Dinner Classics" series. Beautiful!