Passions according to Joshua: ClaverackLanding and Helsinki Hudson presents Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin,
Music of Johann Sebastian Bach, Scott Joplin, and Ernesto Nazareth
Bach: Prelude in C Major S.846/1; Joplin: "The Entertainer"; Bach: Prelude and Fugue in F Major S.856; Joplin, "Elite Syncopations"; Nazareth: "Vitorioso"; Bach: Prelude and Fugue in A♭ Major S.862; Nazareth: "Plangente"; Bach: Prelude and Fugue in C Minor S.847; Joplin: "Solace"; Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B♭ Minor S.866; Nazareth: "Fon-Fon!"; Joplin: "Magnetic Rag"; Bach: Prelude and Fugue in B♭ Minor S.867.
When was it? 1972, 1973? Joshua Rifkin performed Scott Joplin at Alice Tully Hall. I had recently been bitten by the Joplin bug, largely owing to Mr. Rifkin's recordings, and remember hearing his lilting interpretations of the "Maple Leaf Rag," "Elite Syncopations," and "Magnetic Rag." His recordings on Nonesuch spurred a peculiarly "Rifkinesque" revival of ragtime. Recordings of rags, even of Joplin's, had been plentiful, but all done in a heavily nuanced "honky-tonk" technique with performers like Knocky Parker, Max Morath, or Dick Hyman; Joplin, an African-American genius who became a sensation with the "Maple Leaf Rag" of 1899, was poorly served when performed in the "finger-bustin'" style of Zez Confrey or Euday Bowman. Mr. Rifkin's revisionist approach to Joplin was to play these rags "as is," with little embellishment rubato
