Track Listing

1. Please Say You Will
2. Picture of Her Face
3. Great Crush Collision March
4. Harmony Club Waltz
5. Combination March
6. Original Rags
7. Maple Leaf Rag
8. Swipesy Cakewalk
9. Sunflower Slow Drag
10. Peacherine Rag
11. Augustan Club Waltz
12. Easy Winners
13. Cleopha
14. Strenuous Life
15. I Am Thinking of My Pickanniny Days
16. Ragtime Dance
17. Breeze from Alabama
18. Elite Syncopations
19. March Majestic
20. Entertainer
21. Something Doing
22. Weeping Willow Rag
23. Little Black Baby
24. Palm Leaf Rag
25. Favorite
26. Sycamore
27. Cascades
28. Chrysanthemum
29. Cascades
30. Chrysanthemum
31. Rosebud March
32. Bethena
33. Leola
34. Sarah Dear
35. Bink's Waltz
36. Eugenia
37. Antionette
38. Snoring Sampson
39. Gladiolus Rag
40. Search-Light Rag
41. Nonpareil
42. When Your Hair Is Like the Snow
43. School of Ragtime
44. Fig Leaf Rag
45. Sugar Cane
46. Pineapple Rag
47. Wall Street Rag
48. Solace
49. Pleasant Moments
50. Country Club
51. Paragon Rag
52. Euphonic Sounds
53. Stoptime Rag
54. Felicity Rag
55. Lovin' Babe
56. Scott Joplin's New Rag
57. Highlights from "Treemonisha"
58. Real Slow Rag
59. Prelude to Act 3
60. Frolic of the Bears
61. Kismet Rag
62. Magnetic Rag
63. Reflection Rag
64. Silver Swan Rag
65. Lily Queen
66. Sensation

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #183516 in Music
• Released on: 1993-11-30
• Number of discs: 5
• Format: Box set

Customer Reviews

Imperfect, but the best we've got
Oh for a really good recording of all of Scott Joplin! Until somebody does that, Richard Zimmerman's brave, pioneering, effort will have to do. And it does quite well. While a few of the incredible 66 pieces in this set sound a bit wooden - remember he recorded 66 tunes here! It is no wonder a few of them sound as if he were sight-reading them. Where Zimmerman is good, he is very, very good, especially on the better-known pieces. Even when he is not at his best, we are hearing some tunes not recorded anywhere else.

This admittedly imperfect set will be extremely tough to beat, for its comprehensiveness. It sets a benchmark. Every fan of Scott Joplin should own it, if only to be challenged to find better, or PLAY better, versions of some of the rarest tunes recorded here.

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
I am a musician and have played Joplin's music exactly as he wrote for more than 30 years. I have also recorded it in the past. The Zimmermann boxed set has one great thing going for it. It contains many of Joplin's works that to the best of my knowledge have never been recorded. For this reason the set is worth buying. The playing however is terrible. Joplin would turn over in his grave if he heard this. For some reason many musicians think that the faster you play ragtime the better it is. In fact Joplin's works are highly syncopated compositions and much of the enjoyment in listening is to hear them at proper tempo so the mind is drawn into the incredible complexities of the score. These recordings contain many missed and slured notes. The tempo is much to fast. A few of the cuts are OK but not many. Zimmermann obviously did not read Joplin's notes on the music as to tempo. Frankly there are many recordings of Joplin that are far superior to this set. A very good CD is the RCA "Scott Joplin Greatest Hits" played by Dick Hyman. If this set had been recorded by a musician knowledgeable in ragtime music it would be a treasure. Still it may be worth buying just to have many of the lesser known compositions but if you are a critical listener you will probably be very disappointed. How I wish this collection had been well played.

Not for pleasure
You may want this just to have any recording at all of some of the otherwise unavailable pieces in this collection. But, this is the worst quality playing I've ever heard on a commercial recording. The marches actually aren't too bad, but anything syncopated is not played right. Zimmerman fat fingers notes in almost every piece (i.e. he hits adjacent notes). The dynamics and tempo are erratic. The attempts at ornamentation are forced. If you enjoy piano playing, you won't enjoy this.