Music and Vinyl: Katia and Marielle Labèque play Scott Joplin

This is the second record of music by Scott Joplin I've featured in this blog - the first being Joshua Rifkin's tremendously successful 1970 album for Nonesuch. On this 1983 recording by the Labèque sisters, Katia and Marielle, Joplin's music is the main feature . here arranged for two pianos.

Scott Joplin

Katia and Marielle Labèque are one of the most well known piano duos and have been recording regularly from the early 80s to the present day and appearing all round the world at concerts and festivals. I first came across them with their two-piano versions of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and his Piano Concerto - both pianistic tour-de-forces.

The three pieces I've chosen for my video are contrasting and show different sides to Joplin's musical personality. Strenuous Life is a piece that conforms to all the usual expectations of a piano rag. It is followed by Stop Time - music titled after the effect of "stop-time" - which does what it says on the tin! Lastly we have Bethena, A Concert Waltz. This gentle ragtime waltz is all the more touching for knowing it was Joplin's first composition after his wife's death only ten weeks after their wedding.