LET THE RAG TIMES ROLL
An advance copy of the latest Hyperion piano release drops through my letterbox, and I can’t resist giving it a spin. The repertoire is the collected rags by William Bolcom played by the indefatigable Marc-André Hamelin. Hamelin can cast a spell over anything he plays, and this latest instalment doesn’t disappoint: it’s on repeated listening for the rest of the day.
On a Zoom call a few days later from his home in Massachusetts, the Canadian virtuoso talks about his admiration for ‘Bill’ Bolcom (born 1938): ‘He’s quite the major figure in the US,’ Hamelin explains of a composer less familiar on the other side of the Atlantic, though Naxos has released several albums of his music including an epic choral-orchestral setting of William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience.
‘Bill has been very prolific.
