Search - Scott Joplin, Richard Zimmerman :: Scott Joplin - His Greatest Hits

The King and His Treasures:

Galina | Virginia, USA | 03/09/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Scott Joplin. His Greatest Hits" (1996) CD includes 16 finest rag times written by the "King of the Ragtime Composers" and performed by Richard Zimmerman, a Los Angeles musician, a key figure in the ragtime revival, a founder of worldwide The Maple Leaf Club who recorded all Joplin's works. Joplin (1868-1917) himself predicted that it would take twenty five years after his death to recognize his music. It took much longer more than that but after the enormous success of the multi-time Oscar winning (including best score) stylish crime comedy "The Sting" (1973), his music that had been successfully used in the film in the Marvin Hamlisch's adaptation began its triumphant revival and became deservingly famous and popular around the world. Six refine, appealing, multi-themed, haunting, magnificent, syncopated rags from the movie are included in "His Greatest Hits": Easy Winners, Gladiolus Rag, Pine Apple Rag, Rag Time Dance", and two of my favorites, "Solace" - experimental, slow, meditating piece that contains Habanera rhythms and melodic, sophisticated, triumphant, elegant masterpiece, "The Entertainer". I think Joplin would've been surprised to find out that sixty years after his death, thousands miles from Sedalia, Missouri where he studied music theory and composition or from NYC where he spent his last years, in Moscow, Russia, one girl would listen to LP given her by a friend and would fell in love with the incredibly beautiful and timeless rag times from the very first sound of piano. For many years, my favorite was "The Entertainer" but since couple of days ago, it is "Map Leaf Rag" which is so perfect that I don't think Joplin himself ever wrote anything better and his every piece is fantastic. There is something so special about "Map Leaf Rag" - it is like thousands tiny silver hammers joyfully jump against the polished shining surface or like myriads of summer raindrops when the sun shines through the clouds and huge bridge of rainbow invites you to step on it and to lose yourself to this cascading syncopated feast of sounds."