Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. Prologue: Ragtime
2. Goodbye, My Love
3. Journey On - Lynnette Perry, Ensemble
4. The Crime of the Century
5. What Kind of Woman
6. A Shtetl Iz Amereke
7. Success
8. His Name Is Coalhouse Walker
9. Getting' Ready Rag
10. Henry Ford
11. Nothing Like the City
12. Your Daddy's Son
13. The Courtship
14. New Music
15. Wheels of a Dream
16. The Night That Goldman Spoke at Union Square
17. Gliding
18. The Trashing of the Car
19. Justice
20. President
21. Till We Reach That Day

Disc 2:

1. Entr'acte
2. Harry Houdini, Master Escapist
3. Coalhouse's Soliloquy
4. Coalhouse Demands
5. What a Game
6. Fire in the City
7. Atlantic City
8. Buffalo Nickel Photoplay, Inc.
9. Our Children
10. Harlem Nightclub
11. Sarah Brown Eyes
12. He Wanted to Say
13. Back to Before
14. Look What You've Done
15. Make Them Hear You
16. Epilogue: Ragtime/Wheels of a Dream (reprise)
17. The Ragtime Symphonic Suite

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1456 in Music
• Released on: 1998-04-28
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Cast Recording
• Dimensions: .31 pounds

Amazon.com essential recording
The epic sweep of Ragtime is captured in its opening prologue, a nine-minute kaleidoscope of fictional characters mingling with historical figures from the early 20th century as originally captured in E.L. Doctorow's sprawling novel. As the story continues, we meet pianist Coalhouse Walker Jr. (Brian Stokes Mitchell) and his child's mother, Sarah (Audra McDonald), who has been taken in by a respectable family (including Marin Mazzie as Mother). Parallel story lines of the Latvian immigrant Tateh (Peter Friedman), the entertainer Evelyn Nesbit (Lynnette Perry), and even Harry Houdini (Jim Corti) and Emma Goldman (Judy Kaye) eventually mingle and merge. Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens (Once on This Island) mix marches, cakewalks, and of course ragtime to create a rich, compelling score, including Sarah's song to her baby, "Your Daddy's Son," her soaring duet with Coalhouse, "Wheels of a Dream," Mother's self-revealing "Back to Before," and numerous set pieces, all performed by a perfect cast. Ragtime was nominated for 12 Tony Awards in 1998, with wins for McDonald, original score, book, and orchestration. The CD also includes an eight-minute symphonic suite conducted by Paul Gemignani and a booklet with photos, full lyrics, and a history of how the score was written. Tragic, touching, and ultimately triumphant, Ragtime is an American classic. --David Horiuchi

Entertainment Weekly
The most compelling American musical-theater song-writing team ... composer Stephen Flaherty and lyricist Lynn Ahrens often attain epic grandeur by using foreshadowing and recurring motifs to interweave the lives of the 10 principals.

Customer Reviews

THIS should be the way musicals appear on CD!
The wonderful thing about this recording is that nearly the entire show is captured on disc. Often with cast recordings, so much occurs between the songs that the essence of the show is diluted. Here, you really get a sense of the operatic scope of the production.
All the other reviews justly laud the performers...they sing while acting amazingly well. I don't have much to add there. Believe the hype...they're awesome.
I'd like to compare this to the previous iteration of the show. "Ragtime" was originally released as a "highlights" style single disc. The opening song was edited, as was the closer. It appeared a year or so earlier, and the performances are different. The latter disc is NOT an edited version of the former.
The "songs only" version is interesting in that those versions work just fine. The edited 'Ragtime' intro plays better as a song when it's edited. It just loses a ton in exposition and drama. When you have the urge to hear a song, like "New Music" or "Wheels Of A Dream", the former one is actually a tad better. But only when you consider the songs OUT of context.
Listening to this longer version, the performers tell a story. It flows from beginning to end; the songs meld together effortlessly. The story of "Ragtime" is phenomenally well told, and it's a crime that so much was excised previously. I mean, how could you really appreciate this musical without "Sarah Brown Eyes"? That's one of the many songs absent on the "highlights" version.
So, if you only have the first, you NEED the full CD.
If you have the complete version, you're missing something, but not much.

Broadway Shines Again ! ! !
RAGTIME is a new musical up to par with the classics... from West Side Story, Fiddler on The Roof, Porgy & Bess, Guys and Dolls and countless others from an era when musicals were THE great American art form. It is the colorful novel with its intense and diverse cast of charactors brought to life without any artistic compromise. The story is as rich as the music - - the play is intense... though bitter, dark, tragic and melodramatic and larger than life at times, within the course of a mere chorus or scene, inspiring, hillarious, disturbing or uplifting... Some reviewers have actually complained about this... but the writers have this musical have gone to extrodanary efforts not to capture the story of a mere person, but a huge cast of individuals from a diversity of cultures with different hopes and dreams, and the chaos that ensues in the midst of a changing era as their lives are brought together admidst a tragedy. This is not merely a great musical... it is a play... and an operetta. The recording is almost as enjoyable as the musical, but you will probabably want to listen to and see both repeatedly. ENJOY ! ! !

Compelling!
In 1997, Canadian theatrical producer brought out a musical based on E.L. Doctorow's 1975 hit novel, Ragtime. This hit play tells several stories simultaneously, but largely revolves around one complacent white family coming to terms with the issues of race and class in early 20th century America. The 38(!) songs on this two CD set walk the listener through the play, giving you a wonderful familiarity with the story.

The songs on these CDs are wonderfully written and performed, and are truly each a work of art. I have enjoyed hours of listening to the songs over and over again. Indeed, closing your eyes, you can listen to these songs and feel as if you have seen the play; the songs are that compelling! Overall I enjoyed these CDs and highly recommend them to everyone.