A Style Analysis of William Bolcom’s Complete Rags for Piano
Yeung Yu · OhioLink ETD Center (Ohio Library and Information Network) · 2007
William Bolcom: Complete Rags for Piano is a collection of twenty-two of Bolcom's piano rags written between 1967 and 1993.In this research, the rags are examined year by year; the stylistic analysis focuses on the use of form, rhythm, harmony, melody, and musical texture in each rag.In these rags, Bolcom perfectly blended a variety of musical styles and elements, including American traditional ragtime styles such as classic rag and stride styles, the nineteenth-century romanticism of Chopin and Schumann, and modern compositional techniques, such as tone clusters and atonal passages.By means of these varied compositional techniques, the music acquires a distinctive sound and identifies what has become known as Bolcom's unique ragtime style.iii