Palm, William

"It is never right to play Ragtime fast." Scott Joplin's famous instruction, printed at the top of most of his publications, has been overlooked by many pianists who take quick, Tin Pan Alley tempos for such favorites as Maple Leaf Rag and The Easy Winners. Listening to William Appling's four-CD set of the complete rags, waltzes, and marches, one should be convinced that the correct speed for most of Joplin's piano music seems to be a moderate walking, if not ambling, pace, and Joplin's subtle harmonies and intricate syncopations are easier to appreciate when the timing is leisurely. Appling came to Joplin by way of rediscovering a student's abandoned copy of the Collected Works edition, and playing through the rags in 2001 gave him the impetus to record not only this impressive collection, but also to work on other Joplin projects, such as a full-scale production of the opera Treemonisha.

Guillaume Bouzignac (1690?-1743?) was not attached to the French Royal Court. His music was not published by Ballard, who held a royal monopoly on musical publication. He MAY have been a choirboy in Narbonne, a master of the choirboys in Grenoble, a musical servant of Henri Montmorency, governor of Languedoc at the time of the wars against the Huguenots, and a person of musical importance in the city of Tours, where the manuscript of these motets was discovered in 1905. That covers almost everything that's known about the composer outside of the very specific information about his musical thought contained in his works.