On this day, April 22, 1944, Joshua Rifkin was born.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Like many people, I know him for his Scott Joplin albums on Nonesuch. He has such a command of Joplin. The performances are magnificent.

Joshua Rifkin

Joshua Rifkin (born April 22, 1944 in New York) is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist, currently a Professor of Music at Boston University. As a performer he has recorded music by composers from Antoine Busnois to Silvestre Revueltas, and as a scholar has published research on composers from the Renaissance to the 20th century. He is famed among classical musicians and aficionados for his increasingly influential theory that most of Bach's choral works were sung with only one singer per choral line. Rifkin argued: "So long as we define 'chorus' in the conventional modern sense, then Bach's chorus, with few exceptions, simply did not exist." He is best known by the general public, however, for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s, with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records.

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Rifkin and Joplin


A 1901 edition of Joplin's work

Rifkin's Joplin albums (the first of which was Scott Joplin: Piano Rags in November 1970 on the classical label Nonesuch)—which were presented as classical music recordings—were critically acclaimed, commercially successful and led to other artists exploring the ragtime genre. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at No. 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at No. 4, and a combined set of both volumes at No. 3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra), but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category.[6] Rifkin's work as a revivalist of Joplin's work immediately preceded the adaptation of Joplin's music by Marvin Hamlisch for the film The Sting (1973). In 1979 Alan Rich in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on record Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."

In August 1990, Rifkin recorded a CD for the Decca label (catalog number 425 225) featuring rags by two of the other major composers of ragtime, Joseph Lamb and James Scott, and also tango compositions by the Brazilian composer Ernesto Nazareth.

{snip}

Scott Joplin: Piano Rags


CD re-release cover (artwork as on the LP)

Studio album by Joshua Rifkin
Released: November 1970
Genre: Ragtime
Length: 32:40
Label: Nonesuch Records

Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The original album's cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin, as contrasting the album's spine. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of pianist and composer Joplin in the early 1970s. It was Nonesuch Records' first million-selling album.

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I didn't hear of the album at the time. It wasn't until about 1973 or 1974, after Treemonisha had been revived, that Scott Joplin flew onto my radar.

In this rare video, Joshua Rifkin sits down to play at just about 32:08.

A Ragtime Symposium at Jazz at Lincoln Center
9,778 views•Nov 18, 2017

Jazz at Lincoln Center's JAZZ ACADEMY
186K subscribers

Hosted by Terry Waldo, featuring Max Morath, Joshua Rifkin, Mike Lipskin, and Dick Hyman.

Learn more at the Jazz Academy - http://academy.jazz.org​

Dan LaCourse
1 year ago

This is the only live recording I've seen of Rifkin. I think his playing here is even better than on the Nonesuch recordings.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. But wait; there's more.

Episode 9 — A Portrait of Wildflowers with Judy Collins and Joshua Rifkin

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Judy Collins’ 1967 album Wildflowers preserves the spirit of the Summer of Love in a way that sounds timeless. The album combines Collins’ crystal clear voice; songs by two of the finest songwriters of that — or any — era, Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen (as well as some true gems by Collins herself); with the boldly sensitive orchestrations of Joshua Rifkin. For those who knew the album in its day, it is a heady sonic bouquet of cherished memories. For those listening for the first time, the ideas and imagination presented can sound vividly new.

In 2012 David Garland recorded separate interviews with both Judy Collins and Joshua Rifkin — seeking their memories, thoughts, and ideas about the making of Wildflowers. Here he weaves those interviews together to provide an insightful portrait celebrating this classic album. Collins says she wanted to make an album that would take her and her listeners to new musical territory. Wildflowers as a whole is just as daring and romantic as Collins intended it to be, and even yielded a hit song in “Both Sides Now.”

This podcast also includes a special performance by Judy Collins, accompanying herself on piano, of two of her songs from the album.

Judy Collins’ first album was released in 1961, and ever since then she has been an important voice of her generation — finding, presenting, and creating songs that have won awards and, more importantly, the hearts of her listeners. Her performing and recording career continues to this day. She’s also the author of several books, including fiction, and memoirs such as Sweet Judy Blue Eyes: My Life in Music. She’s a life-long social activist, representing UNICEF and numerous other causes, and she is co-director of an Academy Award-nominated film, Portrait of a Woman, about Antonia Brico, the first woman to conduct major symphonies around the world, who was Judy’s classical piano teacher when she was young.

In the 1960s musician, conductor, and scholar Joshua Rifkin studied with modernist composers Milton Babbitt and Karlheinz Stockhausen, recorded with the Even Dozen Jug Band, arranged the album The Baroque Beatles Book, and created the imaginative and beautifully textured arrangements for Judy Collins that are heard here. In the early 1970s Rifkin spurred a resurgence of interest in the music of Scott Joplin by making three popular albums of Joplin’s piano music (played at their original, unhurried tempos), for the Nonesuch label.

Rifkin founded the Bach Ensemble in 1978, an group that performs on period instruments, in period style. In his efforts to perform J.S. Bach’s music authentically, Rifkin has even caused controversy. In 1981 there was an uproar at a conference where Rifkin presented his thesis that Bach’s vocal music was originally performed by only one singer per part. Rifkin based his thesis on examination of the original scores used by Bach’s singers, and this is how the Bach Ensemble performs the cantatas and even Bach’s larger choral works.

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Listen here to the full Wildflowers album, followed by Collins/Rifkin collaborations from the Judy Collins albums In My Life (1966) and Whales & Nightingales (1970). The playlist concludes with “Suzanne” from In My Life, which is not arranged by Joshua Rifkin but manages to be gorgeous anyway.

{snip}

Ouverture (I Want to Hold Your Hand)
5,465 views•Feb 13, 2015

Joshua Rifkin - Topic
1K subscribers

Provided to YouTube by Nonesuch

Ouverture (I Want to Hold Your Hand) · Joshua Rifkin

Les Plaisirs (Ticket to Ride)
2,851 views•Feb 13, 2015

Joshua Rifkin - Topic
1K subscribers

Provided to YouTube by Nonesuch

Les Plaisirs (Ticket to Ride) · Joshua Rifkin

L'Amour s'en cachant [You've Got to Hide Your Love Away]
2,069 views•Feb 13, 2015

Joshua Rifkin - Topic
1K subscribers

Provided to YouTube by Nonesuch

L'Amour s'en cachant [You've Got to Hide Your Love Away] · Joshua Rifkin

[regnaD kciN]

2. Vanguard had some really interesting choices in album production...

Aside from having Rifkin arrange songs for Judy Collins, they did the same with Peter Schiekele of “P.D.Q. Bach” fame doing orchestrations for some of Joan Baez’s albums.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. On this day, April 22, 1944, Joshua Rifkin was born.

Updating for 2022