The Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin by Richard Dowling

The concert hall experience is by its very nature ephemeral—once the notes drift and reverberate they are remembered only by those in attendance. Sometimes, however, a studio recording captures a performance so vividly that the concert hall experience is brought to the listener at home—so that the concert may be relived (if one has been so lucky as to hear the artist play the material on the stage) or enjoyed as if in concert for the first time. On April 1, 2017, we purchased Richard Dowling’s Complete Piano Works of Scott Joplin (Rivermont BSW-2240) on the day it became available for sale. By no coincidence, it so happened that we bought the three-CD set at the very concert series of Joplin’s complete piano works played by Dowling on the one hundredth anniversary of the composer’s death. The concert series, as I discussed in my “Static” column, was magnificent. (The Carnegie concerts have also been reviewed by Bill Hoffman, in a “Jazz Travels” column to be published in the June 2017 issue of TST.) There was a sense of triumph—and relief—in the final note of the second concert. It was important that everything go as planned on the Joplin centenary—and it did. Part of the relief was that the Rivermont CDs, three years in the planning, recording, mastering, and annotating, arrived at Richard Dowling’s New York apartment one day before the concert. It coul