Catalogue Connection: 25220

This album is titled Syncopated Musings. Most of Joplin’s published music contains the following: “NOTE: Do not play this piece fast. It is never right to play Ragtime fast. Composer.” Dover’s wonderful, affordable publication of the Complete Piano Rags is indispensable for any pianist. It contains most of the music heard on this disc, including many of the rags co-authored with Haydn, Marshall, and Chauvin. It misses some of the pieces not specifically referred to as Ragtime and Sensation by Joseph Lamb. I found the reproductions of the original sheet music covers to be fascinating, and also a reminder of the American psyche back in the first couple of decades of the 1900s. It distressed me to see the “Mammy and Pappy” caricatures of African-Americans. There were also a number with drawings of very aristocratic whites at their country clubs, at a concert, or even on horseback with all of their riding clothes on. A small photo of Joplin with his self-proclaimed title “The King of Ragtime Writers” was also present on the covers of these five-cent pieces of music. It was good to find out that he received a penny for each copy sold, which made his life comfortable, considering that the Maple Leaf Rag sold over a half million copies itself.

The subtitle of Joplin’s Reflection Rag, the closing piece on this program, is Syncopated Musings, hence the title of this release. Most Joplin recordings contain the best-known rags and bypass the large number of other good ones. Nonken includes fewer of the former and more of the latter. In addition to rags, she has selected some concert waltzes and other novelties. There is more sensitivity and attention to little voice leading details in her playing than I am used to. Make no mistake, this is music with simple, quite similar accompaniment patterns and a lot of repetition. While I might not normally choose to listen to a full program of Joplin, it is to Nonken’s credit that I enjoyed this disc many times.

Marilyn Nonken bills herself as both a pianist and musicologist. She is a professor at NYU’s Steinhardt School and has made over 30 recordings, mostly of 20th- and 21st-century music. The recorded sound is excellent. The booklet notes are quite informative and complete. With an abundance of lesser-known pieces and the absence of the best-known Joplin rags, this is a perfect complement to whatever you might already have. Nonken’s scholarship matches her stylistically perfect playing. You will hear adventurous harmonies and turns of melody. You will also be tapping your foot to this program.

Marilyn Nonken focuses in her latest disc on the Ragtime music of Scott Joplin and his collaborators. It charts a decade’s worth of compositions in a search to extract a greater expressive weight than has perhaps been heard before and to that end she has selected a broad range of pieces, half of which are Joplin’s and half collaborations.

I wouldn’t say that Joplin performances are necessarily susceptible to interpretative extremes but when they’re played with the monomaniacal didacticism of Joshua Rifkin – whose Heliotrope Bouquet lasts six excruciating minutes – they can emerge broken-backed and damaged beyond repair. Nonken is a far saner interpreter though she’s not as full of swagger as Richard Zimmerman in his Murray Hill traversal of the (then) Complete Works back in the mid-70s.

Eugenia is notable for its long bridge passage, possibly the first in his Rags, which both Nonken and William Albright (Nimbus) take very well, though I still retain a soft spot for Zimmerman’s staccati, which are subtly deployed. Nonken, however, proves up to the challenge of that rhythmic study Stoptime Rag, catching its wit.

Joplin’s collaborations with the young Scott Hayden show the prodigy’s propensity for lyrical long lines and Felicity Rag is more – as it were – felicitous at Zimmerman’s tempo than Albright’s. Nonken splits the difference but there is still something fresh and vivid in Zimmerman’s reading. Nonken tends to be tonally rather hard-edged in Kismet Rag, a fine choice of repertoire, nonetheless. Joplin’s collaboration with Arthur Marshall shows Marshall’s extrovert compositional qualities. In theory I applaud her reading of the famously beautiful Bethena, a concert waltz. It requires constant syncopation throughout and Nonken takes a fine, forward-moving tempo though at some cost tonally and in respect of phrasing. Zimmerman phrases the [piece] more lovingly.

Antoinette, a march and two-step, reminds me of Jelly Roll Morton’s almost contemporaneous absorption of the music he heard in the French Opera house in New Orleans – though the discrete use each man made of the music is what set apart Joplin and Morton. Solace is a favourite amongst jazzers, for whom it offers improvisational opportunities not always evident in other Rags. Take a listen to Soprano Summit’s version featuring that expert and inspirational Rag performer – amongst many other assets – Dick Hyman. Zimmerman plays with a greater latitude when it comes to rubati, but Nonken plays it rather straighter.

The music has been thoughtfully selected, and the collaborations with Hayden and Marshall take prime position, alongside those of Joplin himself. The performances are largely convincing, though at times inclined to be hard-edged – whether because of the performer or the recording I wouldn’t like to say – and sometimes, in her eagerness to stress its status, Nonken can downplay its sheer joyfulness.

Ragtime was a forerunner of jazz and the main form of American popular music from about 1899 to 1917. It evolved via honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and elsewhere in the last decades of the 19th century and combined minstrel-show songs, African American banjo and off-beat dance rhythms. Typically the beat is regular and played on one hand, the other picking out the melody. You all know the sound: classic movie The Sting featured several of Joplin’s compositions, most famously The Entertainer; that’s not on here but the sound is the same, there or thereabouts.

Joplin apparently thought ragtime was a serious branch of classical music, and Nonken (professor of music at New York University’s Steinhardt School) leans towards the classical, though it’s pretty jaunty throughout and she sounds like she had fun. The composers featured are Arthur Marshall, Joseph Lamb, Louis Chauvin, Scott Hayden and Joplin but to be honest, unless you’re a ragtime aficionado, they all sound similar. This is a very easy album to listen to, somewhere between jazz and classical; no toes will be tapped but it’s entertaining and lively, and a lot of fun. Warmly recommended.

Marilyn Nonken is a classical pianist known for playing some of the most challenging music of the 20th and 21st centuries. That Scott Joplin’s music does not present the technical difficulties that often attract her attention might make us wonder what enticed her to devote an entire CD to seventeen of his solo and collaborative compositions. The CD notes do specifically address that particular issue, but its discussion of the quality, inventiveness, and emotion of Joplin’s craft reveals that these are among the features that appeal to Nonken.

Joplin brought excellence to his music, regardless of genre, evident from the acclaim he received. His early vocal quartet groups, for which he did the arrangements, were universally praised, and blues pioneer W.C. Handy noted that of the many Black quartets in St. Louis in 1892-93, Joplin’s was the best. Similarly, his theater piece from 1899–1900 (later published only in part as The Ragtime Dance) moved one white newspaper in Sedalia, Missouri (where memories of slavery were still vivid) to label him a genius, an appraisal amplified by Alfred Ernst, conductor of the Saint Louis Choral Symphony Society. While enjoying recognition for his vernacular compositions, Joplin really aspired to be recognized as a classical composer, clearly indicated by his composition of two operas and the report, several months before his death, that he was writing a symphony. Though he had many successes, he never received the recognition he sought during his lifetime.

Interest in at least some of Joplin’s music did not totally fade after his death in 1917, but it took a half-century before it began to acquire a classical mantle. In the mid-1960s, composer William Bolcom shared an office at Queens College with Rudi Blesh, co-author of They All Played Ragtime. In response to Bolcom’s questions about Joplin’s Treemonisha, Blesh provided copies of the opera and of several rags. Bolcom, intrigued by the music, was inspired to compose a few of his own rags, using a more contemporary musical language.

He also spread the word to some of his colleagues: William Albright, who joined Bolcom in composing contemporary rags; T.J. Anderson who, working from Joplin’s piano-vocal score, orchestrated Treemonisha; Vera Brodsky Lawrence, who compiled a two-volume edition of Joplin’s music, published by the New York Public Library; and Joshua Rifkin. Rifkin used his position at Nonesuch Records, a classical label, to record his own performances of a few Joplin rags.

Unexpectedly, this recording became a major hit and, because it was issued by Nonesuch Records, the industry labelled the music as “classical.” In addition to signaling the advent of the Scott Joplin revival of the 1970s, it opened Joplin’s music to classical performers. H. Wiley Hitchcock provided additional rationale to classical performances when he wrote in the April 1971 issue of Stereo Review that Joplin rags were “the precise American equivalent, in terms of a native style of dance music, of minuets by Mozart, mazurkas by Chopin, or waltzes by Brahms.”

Taking up the invitation, many classical performers began including Joplin’s music in recital programs. This development was substantially enabled by publication in 1971 of the New York Public Library edition of Joplin’s collected works (not complete works, as a few were missing), providing access to many rare pieces, long out-of-print; some of the music, with incomplete copyright registrations, were not even available at the Library of Congress.

Generally, the classical approach is to remain faithful to the score and reproduce it with technical clarity rather than to embellish the music with inventive variations and improvisations. Classical artists may differentiate and personalize their performances with subtleties, highlighting features that might otherwise go unnoticed, using touch and dynamics to separate distinctive lines and to adjust expressiveness. Nonken follows these principles and excels in their execution; her playing is always ultra clean, precise, and well considered. For the most part, she adheres to Joplin’s notation and directions, although she deviates slightly in two selections: in Swipesy Cake Walk (co-composed with his one-time student Arthur Marshall) she adds a few grace notes and, in part of the final strain, plays the melody an octave higher; in Reflection Rag she adds a few trills.

Nonken’s tempos are usually brisk, the fastest being with Stoptime Rag, for which Joplin directed “Fast or Slow,” as opposed to his usual admonition against playing ragtime fast. Nonken takes it at about 120 beats-per-minute, and it goes like the wind. Most classical pianists whose Joplin performances I’ve heard play this piece slightly percussively; Nonken plays it generally legato, and in the final strain presents an even smoother legato that’s both unexpected and delicious. This final strain is a good example of how classical pianists, all playing the same notes, may personalize their performances.

Nonken plays Joplin’s most sensuous pieces much more slowly, taking Heliotrope Bouquet (co-composed with Louis Chauvin) closer to 70 beats-per-minute and Solace, marked by Joplin as “Very slow march time,” at around 60. With Lily Queen, published as a co-composition with Arthur Marshall, Nonken brings out the inherent interest that resides in the bass line. The publisher, W.W. Stuart, was a small firm on Tin Pan Alley, a block from the rooming house where Joplin resided in New York. Marshall had told Blesh and Janis that the composition was entirely his own and that Joplin, who had brought the music to the publisher (Marshall was living in Chicago), added his name simply to encourage sales. However, Marshall’s manuscript is extant and was auctioned about 6–7 years ago with other ragtime memorabilia from the Rudi Blesh estate. I examined the manuscript at that time and, in comparing it from memory with the published music, noted many differences: these are in the notation, in the inner-voice leading and the placement of notes within chords, and in the melody of the final strain. These changes could have been made by the firm’s editor, if it had one, but are more likely to have been the work of Joplin, for they are totally consistent with his style.

Not all classical pianists who perform Joplin’s music produce a satisfactory result. I’ve heard recordings and live performances in which the pianist, taking to an extreme Joplin’s caution against playing ragtime fast, ignore its dance music function and adopt a dirge-like tempo that destroys its toe-tapping nature. Others play it with the bombast of a late Romantic piano concerto, a course that overwhelms the music. Nonken joins the group of classicists who understand the character of ragtime and have the skill and temperament to enhance it in performance. I expect that Joplin would have been thrilled to hear Nonken play his music; I know that I am.

Composers have many reasons for choosing specific instruments or ensembles for their works, a primary one being the belief that particular instruments or groups are best-suited to communicate whatever a composer wants to express to an audience. In addition, composers who are also performers frequently create works that show their own abilities in the best possible light.

Both of those factors were at play in the early 20^th century among creators of the proto-jazz form of ragtime, which is fascinatingly explored on a Divine Art CD by pianist Marilyn Nonken. Interestingly, the best-known ragtime composer, Scott Joplin (1868-1917), played the violin and cornet – and was a singer. He was a capable enough pianist, but the piano was not his primary instrument. Yet it clearly fit what he was trying to do in his many rags, waltzes and other short character pieces. Other composers working on similar music sometimes collaborated with Joplin or sometimes had their works arranged by him, and Nonken’s disc provides an unusual opportunity to hear some of those collaborations and arrangements. Of the 17 works on the CD, nine are by Joplin himself: Eugenia, Stoptime Rag, Magnetic Rag, Binks’ Waltz, Bethena—A Concert Waltz, Pleasant Moments—Ragtime Waltz, Antoinette—March and Two-Step, Solace—A Mexican Serenade, and Reflection Rag—Syncopated Musings.

The eight other pieces combine Joplin’s creativity what that of four other composers: Louis Chauvin (1882-1908), Scott Hayden (1882-1915), Joseph Lamb (1887-1960), and Arthur Marshall (1881-1968). All the pieces here date to the early 20^th century, having been written between 1901 and 1917 (the ragtime era was essentially over by 1920); and all share similar sensibilities and a similar approach to melody and rhythm. What Nonken does so well in her performances is to differentiate the individual pieces, giving each its own character and distinctiveness. With most of the works cut from essentially the same mold, this is by no means easy to do; and there is little sense of genuinely different compositional styles among the composers here – everything that is not by Joplin sounds distinctly, well, Joplinesque. But this is by no means a bad thing. It underlines the collaborative nature of this type of music in this time period, and it shows quite well that rags, two-steps, waltzes and marches communicate their sentiments, from joie de vivre to melancholy, very effectively on the piano, which had never been used quite this way before – and which was soon to become the anchor of jazz when that form developed, in part, from works like those heard here.

With this album made at New York University in April 2021 we very much get what it clearly says on the tin. Ragtime developed as a popular musical style at the end of the 19th Century. It has its origins in the saloon bars and dance halls of African-American communities. It was originally played, as here, on solo piano. I understand that the left hand plays a very steady rhythm – a vamp style accompaniment which is on the beat. The right hand plays a syncopated melody – initially known as a ‘ragged’ rhythm. It is definitely melodic.

Scott Joplin (c. 1868-1917) is the best-known ragtime writer and described himself as “King” of the genre, but did not claim to be a great pianist. He was one of the first black American composers to achieve fame and fortune. Nine of the tracks here are solely by him, including Magnetic Rag, Binks’ Waltz, Bethena – A Concert Waltz, Solace – A Mexican Serenade, Antoinette – March and Two Step, and Reflection Rag.

Joplin also had a hand in composing alongside Louis Chauvin (Heliotrope Bouquet – A Slow Drag Two Step), Scott Hayden (Felicity Rag and three others), and Arthur Marshall (Swipesy – Cake Walk and Lily King), as well as arranging Joseph Lamb’s Sensation.

Neither of Joplin’s most famous compositions, Maple Leaf Rag and The Entertainer, are included and I would like to have heard Marilyn Nonken’s take on these, although that has not stopped me enjoying this album largely of works that are not on any other of the composer’s discs in my collection.

The soloist is Professor of Music at New York University’s Steinhardt School and has been described in the ‘American Record Guide’ as “one of the greatest interpreters of new music”, having 30 discs to her credit, together with being passionate about the music of “The King of Ragtime” and his collaborators.

Fine playing and sound make this unhackneyed tuneful 17-track selection a worthy addition to the Joplin discography.