PIANIST RECORDED SCOTT JOPLIN’S COMPLETE WALTZES, MARCHES, RAGS,
The late William Appling was an acclaimed conductor, teacher and pianist in the classical music world who, late in his life, developed an appreciation for the ragtime music penned by Scott Joplin.
And now, a century after the famed composer and father of ragtime died, a four-CD set with Appling’s renditions of Joplin’s rags, waltzes and marches is out. Released earlier this year by William Appling Singers & Orchestra, the recordings illustrate the pianist’s obsession with Joplin in his last 10 years.
Bill McClelland, a former student under Appling, produced the release and says Appling was the impetus for the project. He remembers telling his teacher how he wanted to learn “Maple Leaf Rag,” one of Joplin’s iconic tunes.
“It was amazing for me and I brought it to him,” he recalled, noting Appling was a strong jazz pianist. “But he never performed jazz. He just sort of did it as a sideline.”
But Appling, at the time a devoted classical musician, didn’t connect with Joplin. Later, that changed. “Years later, in the early 2000s, he had been teaching and conducting in his life and sort of had to pull back from that due to illness,” McClelland explained.
Appling, based in Ohio and a longtime music department head at the Western Reserve Academy there, decided to focus on his own piano playing, McClelland noting that Bach was likely the pianist’s favorite composer. But scouting around his basement one day, he found a volume of Joplin’s music brought to him by a student.
“He just had this epiphany. He said, ‘ Oh my gosh, look at this.’ He had this total revelation of ‘ What did I do, I missed this,’” McClelland said.
As a beloved teacher and composer, whatever Appling did he did so “full bore,” and so he decided to record all of Joplin’s works for piano and more. “He was just full steam ahead,” McClelland said. Because of his passing, Appling was only able to record what’s in this release, “Scott Joplin: The Complete Rags, Waltzes & Marches.”
“That was his goal, and unfortunately he was only able to do the piano recordings because his illness got the better of him,” McClelland said of the original plan to record the entirety of Joplin’s works. Appling recorded these pieces during 2006 and 2007, however, and it wasn’t until this spring that the CD set was released. One of the key approaches Appling took to Joplin’s music was to heed Joplin’s preference to play this ragtime slowly. “He was very serious about Joplin’s own instructions in terms of tempo,” McClelland said. In this way, the intricacies of the music could be appreciated. “He felt it was more soulful,” the producer said of Appling’s decision to slow it down. Some have been taken aback by this choice, McClelland admitted, but reactions to these recordings have been very positive, he added. “It’s been out a while now, but it’s still being bought and talked about and played. That’s nice,” McClelland said. There are a few recordings of Joplin’s complete works out there but not many, he said. And Appling’s approach to this part of the Joplin repertoire
“He just had this epiphany. He said, ‘Oh my gosh, look at this.’ He had this total revelation of ‘ What did I do, I missed this.’” —Bill McClelland
is unique. It’s also the first set of Joplin’s complete piano works to be recorded by an AfricanAmerican musician. That’s one way in which the pianist felt simpatico with the ragtime king, said McClelland. They both knew what it’s like to work in a world that was not terribly accepting of them, he said.
Appling’s musical background, too, also brought a lot to the Joplin project, McClelland said.
“He understood, as well as anybody alive, the swing and gospel sound and he understood the classical sensibility, as well,” he said.
The CD set is available online at retailers like Amazon and iTunes.
(More info: WilliamAppling. org.)