This is my favorite Joplin rag. I feel that sometimes it's good to romanticize Joplin, and I think this is his most lyrical rag (or one of them at least). Any feedback/criticsm would be appreciated. Hope you enjoy.
Rich

Joplin:Searchlight Rag

Nocturne C#m - F. Chopin

I guess Chopin is on this too...it's me doing his C#minor Nocturne (op. post).

The Joplin was fantastic. Since I am not familiar with this one, I do not know how much you 'romanticized' it. Whatever you did sounded great.

Chopin nocturne - The only thing that grabbed my attention were your trills. They were almost too much, too loud, too abrupt...something like that. I envy the power you have behind them because my trills are usually terrible, but in this case you can play them not slower, but less powerful. (hope this makes sense)

Never heard the Searchlight Rag before. Nicely played nevertheless. Now Piano Society is starting to build up the Joplin recordings, before that it was Clementi and Scarlatti!

The Nocture is very well done. The trills are marvellously executed but you do make rather a meal of them, as someone already remarked. A bit less prominent would be nice. One thing that did not quite convince me was the end of the middle section, the couple of bars before the recap, they sounded a bit jerky to me. But still very good, especially your runs and polyrhythmics !

I'd never heard the Searchlight Rag either. An interesting interpretation, and extremely well executed. I am not sure if the huge rubato makes for idiomatic ragtime, and whether the composer would have approved of it. To me, it seems to be neither here or there, but I'm not a ragtime expert and you could be spot on in doing this. In the second half it was more convincing and you swing along nicely in places.

And I am another one who has never heard this ragtime before so I have no "picture" of how it is supposed to sound. So, I cannot comment on it.

The Nocturne is a rather special but it sound like you put your heart in and that is what is most important. One can argue whether the trills should not be so dominant, that the end of middle section perhaps should be exectued more smoothly as connected triplets, the the runs in the end should be faster etc. but that is of less importance if you have clear program on why you do it in this way. I feel that you "own" it and not try to do a mainstream recording but really your own interpretation. So, well done!

You are a brilliant pianist. Your technique is close to perfect, in my eyes. And the recording is well made.
The only piece I can comment on is the Joplin rag. Some years ago I listened to about all the recordings I could find of these rags. What I want to say, but what in fact you also say yourself in your introduction, is that you treat the piece as romantic music.
In my opinion this is not ragtime, but it is still interesting to listen to. I can hear that you certainly could play it as ragtime too. Let us hear something more!

Rene Hasekamp

Thank you for your compliments...that's probably one of the nicest compliments I've received...although, my technique is far from perfect...that's the hardest thing I've had to work on...any what do you guys out there do for exercises on techniques? I've started doing the Hanons again...I haven't done them in a while...and I gotta get the Dachnani (or however you spell it)...I don't have those yet. But what else do you guys recommend?

That's really brilliant playing. You play very exactly and with precise dynamics. There are no notes uneven in the dynamic, really amazingly!

Normally, I expect to hear the typical groove throughout a Joplin ragtime, but what previous posters already mentioned, you turn that into a romantique piece with much rubato. It does not sound bad to me that way, rather interesting instead. Nevertheless I would prefer a straight ragtime groove, but that's a matter of taste.

I also very much like your Nocturne playing. Very calm and room to breathe. With much rubato, but that does not sound artificial in your case - instead art.

The Joplin is up the site.

And so is the Nocturne.