Bolcom's 'Ghost Rags'

Synopsis

Many good things come in threes — at least William Bolcom seems to think so.

On today’s date in 1971, in a converted garage next to a graveyard in Newburgh, New York, American composer and pianist William Bolcom put the finishes touches to the second of three piano pieces he collectively titled Ghost Rags.

Ghost Rag No. 2, Poltergeist and dedicated to Tracey Sterne, who at that time was a dynamic record producer at Nonesuch Records. In her youth Sterne pursued a career as a concert pianist, but in the 1960s and 70s was responsible for assembling the Nonesuch label’s astonishingly diverse catalog of old, new and world music.  

Ghost Rag No. 3, Dream Shadows, was described by Bolcom as a “white rag” which evoked “the era of white telephones and white pianos” and “was in the white key of C Major.” Bolcom dedicated this rag to his fellow composer, William Albright.

And Bolcom’s Ghost Rag No. 1, Graceful Ghost, has proved to be the most popular of the three. Bolcom dedicated this music to the memory of his father, whose benign spirit Bolcom said he often felt hovering around his piano while he played at night.

Music Played in Today's Program

William Bolcom (b. 1938): Graceful Ghost Rags; Paul Jacobs, piano; Nonesuch 79006

On This Day

Births

• 1791 - French opera composer Louis Joseph F. Herold, in Paris

• 1898 - Italian-American composer Vittorio Rieti, in Alexandria, Egypt

• 1944 - British composer Sir John Tavener, in London

Deaths

• 1935 - Russian composer Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, 75, in Moscow

• 1947 - Venezuelan-born French composer Reynaldo Hahn, 72, in Paris

Premieres

• 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 92 (Ich hab in Gottes Herz und Sinn) performed on Septuagesimae Sunday after Epiphany as part of Bach’s second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25)

• 1828 - Schubert: Piano Trio No. 1, at a private performance by Ignaz Schuppanzigh (violin), Josef Linke (cello), and Carl Maria von Bocklet (piano)

• 1830 - Auber: opera Fra Diavolo in Paris at the Opéra-Comique

• 1876 - Tchaikovsky: Serenade Mélancolique for violin and orchestra, in Moscow (Julian date: Jan. 18)

• 1897 - Glazunov: Symphony No. 5, in London

• 1915 - Ravel: Piano Trio, in Paris, by Gabriel Wilaume (violin), Louis Feuillard (cello), and Alfredo Casella (piano)

• 1916 - Granados: opera Goyescas, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York

• 1927 - Copland: Piano Concerto, by the Boston Symphony conducted by Serge Koussevitzky, with the composer as soloist

• 1941 - Copland: Quiet City, at Town Hall in New York City by the Little Symphony conducted by Daniel Saidenberg; This music is based on incidental music Copland wrote for Irwin Shaw's play of the same name produced by the Group Theater in New York in 1939

• 1944 - Bernstein: Symphony No. 1 (Jeremiah), at the Syria Mosque in Pittsburgh by the Pittsburgh Symphony conducted by the composer, with mezzo-soprano Jennie Tourel as vocal soloist

• 1972 - Scott Joplin: opera Treemonisha (orchestrated by T.J. Anderson), in Atlanta

• 1990 - Joan Tower: Flute Concerto, at Carnegie Hall in New York, with soloist Carol Wincenc and the American Composers Orchestra, Hugh Wolff, conducting

• 1995 - Elinor Armer: Island Earth (to a text by Sci-Fi writer Usula K. Le Guin), at the University of California, Berkeley, by the various San Francisco choirs and the Women’s Philharmonic, conducted by JoAnn Falletta; On the same program were the premiere performance’s of Chen Yi’s Antiphony for orchestra and Augusta Read Thomas’ Fantasy for piano and orchestra (with piano soloist Sara Wolfensohn)

• 1997 - Morten Lauridsen: Mid-Winter Songs (final version) for chorus and orchestra, by the Los Angeles Master Chorale, John Currie conducting. Earlier versions of this work with piano and chamber orchestra accompaniment had premiered in 1981, 1983, and 1985 at various Californian venues.

• 2000 - André Previn: Diversions, in Salzburg, Austria, by the Vienna Philharmonic, the composer conducting

Others

• 1742 - Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin (and the author of Gulliver’s Travels), objects to the cathedral singers taking part in performances of Handel's works while the composer is in that city (Gregorian date: Feb. 8). Rehearsals for the premiere performance of Handel’s Messiah would begin in April of that year, involving the choirs of both Christ Church and St. Patrick’s Cathedrals in Dublin.

• 1971 - William Bolcom completes his Poltergeist Rag (dedicated to Teresa Sterne, a one-time concert pianist who was then a producer for Nonesuch Records). According to the composer's notes, the Poltergeist Rag was written “in a converted garage next to a graveyard in Newburgh, New York.”