Sunday, July 4, 2010

StringsMagazine.com: “Five Scenes from ‘Treemonisha’ by Scott Joplin, Arranged for String Quartet”


[“Five Scenes from ‘Treemonisha’ by Scott Joplin.” Arranged for string quartet by Graham Bastable. International Music Company, $23. (2007)]

The Scott Joplin page at AfriClassical.com explains Treemonisha was completed in 1910 but was first staged in January, 1972 in a concert performance. It was staged in Atlanta, Georgia by the Afro-American Music Workshop of Morehouse College and the Atlanta Symphony under Robert Shaw, conductor.

StringsMagazine.com
Arranged for string quartet by Graham Bastable.
International Music Company, $23.
“International Music Company editorial director and composer William Ryden, writing as Graham Bastable, has arranged five selections from Treemonisha for string quartet: 'We’re Goin’ Around,' 'Prelude,' 'Aunt Dinah Has Blowed De Horn,' 'Superstition,' and 'A Real Slow Drag.' Ryden has written 250 piano rags, so it’s not surprising that his arrangement shows a feeling for the form’s rhythmic vitality, a nice change from the many lugubrious ragtime string-quartet arrangements out there. Still, players might want to listen to a recording of the opera to get the right ragtime style and to resolve some doubtful harmonies in the parts. —I.K.”





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