Pianist
Marc-Andre Hamelin is a remarkable talent and is well-known for his technical ability, which is certainly put to the test in this survey of the complete ragtime music of
William Bolcom. The rag was a popular musical form at the turn of the 20th century before nearly completely disappearing with the emergence of jazz and its many forms. Ragtime music saw a revival in the 1960s and is once more seeing an increase in interest. It was during this earlier revival that
Bolcom began contributing new music to the genre, beginning with "Glad Rag" in 1967.
Bolcom's rags follow the classic style made popular by
Scott Joplin and the stride piano of
James P. Johnson and
Eubie Blake, but they enjoy the expanded chromatism of
Bolcom's time. One major inspiration for him was
Joplin's lost opera,
Treemonisha, which
Bolcom was instrumental in premiering in the 1970s. Another was
Blake, who later became a mentor to
Bolcom, and the two frequently performed together. This partnership inspired several pieces from
Bolcom, such as the program opener
Eubie's Luckey Day. Interest in the style diminished again in the '70s, though he added a few more items to the genre. His final rag,
Contentment, was written in 2015 and was dedicated to his wife and musical partner,
Joan Morris.
Hamelin is up to the task on this collection, which could easily drag at over two hours of rags, with many sharing similar sounds. However, his creativity keeps the program fresh: his playing is ideally light and crisp on the up-tempo works while skillfully displaying expressivity on the slower-tempo tunes. An expertly performed examination of a cyclically neglected style. ~ Keith Finke