I. The Graceful Ghost (Jacobs) - 0:00 II. The Poltergeist (Cazal) - 4:06 III. Dream Shadows (Myer) - 7:19 Pianists : Paul Jacobs, Olivier Cazal, Spencer Myer
I'm glad to see these pieces getting a new audience. The revival of Scott joplin's music in the 1970's brought a number of great American composers to light--including the modern ones like Bolcom. BRAVO!!!!!
I loved the way my piano teacher played Graceful Ghost (he was a friend of Bolcom’s.) He didn’t swing it - and although I’m ok with the swing interpretation, I prefer it straight. It was one of the gentlest, most touching performances I’ve ever heard.
It's a new song, but I love it. When I listen to it when something bad happens and I feel depressed, the ghost dispels the depression sitting on my shoulder and makes me laugh while playing pranks. Looking at the score, I would like to play it someday. Thank you for the great video.
I love these pieces, but I never thought anyone would make a video of them in this format on RU-vid. Looks like I was wrong. Great video! (Edit: If you could make a video of the Garden of Eden Suite-the 2 piano version-it would be amazing.)
I love the chord progression in the first one! Sounds like Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings. The piece also reminds me of the second theme of Kapustin's Piano Sonata No. 6 1st movement or Pokemon Black and White Route 10 (I don't believe anyone knows these pieces :D
@@tarikeld11 The 4th generation is my all times favorite ! HeartGold was the first Pokemon I ever played, and wow, I can still remember the fun years it was
@@SeigneurReefShark I came a bit late in playing Pokemon games.. The first I played has been Platinum with DS. Ages ago, great memories, for sure.. More recently I played some of the newer games, a few years ago with the 3DS of my brother. They are not on same level, by far. And that awful 3D graphics. Eh.. :/
Cazal's is the best version of the Poltergeist I've heard. Your own mileage may differ, as Madison Avenue says. Certainly it's not the only way to play it.
My personal favorite version of "Poltergeist" is still the super excellent MIDI file made by the late John Roache (d. 1998) on his website. Mr. Roache took time and care and pains to not only shape the phrasing of the files he created, but also to adjust the dynamics on EACH INDIVIDUAL NOTE, so though not actually hand-played, his MIDIs sound handplayed by a superb virtuoso. In my opinion, that might be what's needed for pieces of this level of difficulty. Not that a fine pianist can't pull it off... but sometimes there are a lot of moving parts. That was the first place I heard it and I got a bit spoilt hearing the software play the MIDI back perfectly 😁 It's given me a rather unfair bar to set both my own and other folks' performances, in terms of accuracy and control.
@@andrewbarrett1537 I'm sure the midi is mighty impressive, but I cannot believe that William Bolcom, a superb pianist himself, wrote his piece intending it for anything but a flesh-and-blood pianist. The moving parts are exactly what endow a "hand-played" performance with its indefinable but unique character as artistic interpretation. The works of Conlon Nancarrow for player piano are uniquely suited to that idiom, and cannot be hand-played (although some have made instrumental arrangements of some of Nancarrow's pianola pieces). That's different. I for one find most of the myriad midi realizations of keyboard compositions on RU-vid vacuous, although I grant there are occasional exceptions. I always prefer a scratchy old 78 of a pianist from 100 years ago to any Duo-Art, Ampico, or Welte-Mignon piano roll by the same pianist, no matter how faithfully reproduced.
It sounds far too fast for my liking It's around 25 BPM faster than the composer indicated. I'm not one to be a stickler with what the composer wrote exactly (especially for ragtime), but it really does sound like it should be played closer to that speed
My ears may well deceive me, but in three rags the piano sounds a half-tone higher than the notes written in the score. Is this so or do my ears truly deceive me?
Love these as compositions, but the performance employs tooooooo much swing with the 8th-note delay. Joplin, the gran-font, if not the grandfather, of the off-beat bridge between classical salon pieces and early jazz, was a very form-conscious artist, his trademark syncopation notwithstanding.
