Sunday, January 26, 2020

a question for people on the internet about May Aufderheide, has anyone ever attempted to record her complete works?

It's been on my mind since the centennial of the death of Scott Joplin that we have several good box sets of the complete piano music of Scott Joplin and a couple of recordings of Treemonisha and even recordings of his songs.  A comparable set of recordings of the complete rags and waltz of James Scott and Joseph Lamb have been done by Guido Nielson but it's gotten me thinking, has anyone don a comparable complete works recording of May Aufderheide?

For those who don't already know, Aufderheide was probably the best known and most successful woman composing in the ragtime style.  The ragtime revival ensured the classical piano rags of the Joplin school got attention (and it's attention they deserve since Joplin and the Joplin school have been musical heroes of mine for decades), but ragtime was more a genre of popular song than concert rags in the Joplin school and even among instrumental or piano rag there were contributions by a variety of women as well as the usually recognized men.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thank you! I don't know the answer to your good question, but I'm glad to now know of May Aufderheide!