The
Ragtime
Project

Virginia
Eskin,
Piano

Trace the etymology of any great musical genre, and sooner or later you find its roots in the vernacular. It's insinuated into high art over time, until it's no longer distinguishable from it, like the dance forms that we think of as synonyms for Baroque instrumental music. Even so, it's not uncommon that a genre becomes identified with the composer who creates its first masterpieces, as Schubert is identified with the song cycle despite Beethoven's antecedent, or Chopin with the Waltz, despite Schubert's and others' dalliance with it. Certainly for the period of time over which we've been paying attention, say the past several hundred years, this has been going on, and the process continues today. In particular and apropos this group of recordings, 20th century composers have seized upon the 19th century American musical object called the "rag" -- that elegant genus of the musical miniature whose multi-cultural genealogy belies its popular attribution to Scott Joplin. Even if the turn-of-the-century entertainer, Ben Harney, was the first to popularize it, Joplin was by analogy its Schubert, and his classic school of ragtime admitted only two other principals, James Scott and Joseph Lamb.

from Notes by Michael Manning

1. Gunther Schuller: Sand Point Rag
2. Kenneth Laufer: Twelve Note Rag
3. Richard Zimmerman: Lost and Found Rag
4. Mark Kuss: Jump Cut Rag
5. Marjorie Merryman: Dog Day Rag
6. James Tenney: Tangled Rag
7. Martin Amlin: South End Rag
8. Henry Gilbert: Rag Bag, Op. 19
9. William Albright: Nightmare Fantasy Rag
10. Scott Wheeler: Calamity Rag
11. Scott Wheller: Fits and Starts Rag
12. Irving Berlin/Snyder: That Mysterious Rag-Characteristic Intermezzo
13. Brian Dykstra: Spring Beauties
14. William Albright: Behemoth Two-Step
15. Max Morath: Anchoria Leland
16. Stefan Kozinski: Maloney Rag
17. Judith Zaimont: Hesitation Rag
18. Richard St. Clair: Toccata Rag