This program features music by the four great American composers, Joplin, George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Paul Schoenfield. One of its many charms is that all four incorporate American popular styles - ragtime, jazz, blues - into these elegant classical compositions. This eclecticism is part of what makes these pieces so appealingly American. Another striking impression these diverse pieces give is that they're actually written-out improvisations. One can easily imagine the composers sitting down to improvise at the piano; Joplin in the dance hall; Gershwin in the nightclub; Copland, perhaps just off in a room by himself; and Schoenfield, whose music actually evolved from his own after-dinner improvisations at a Hassidic banquet.

Besides these three main popular elements, Paul Schoenfield also draws on a more personal part of his own heritage in the Six Improvisations on Hassidic Melodies. These pieces combine two aspects of Jewish culture: klezmer music (Jewish folk music) brought to this country by eastern European immigrants in the early 20th century, and Hassidic song, the melodic basis from which the improvisations stem. The Hassid, a Jewish sect founded in Poland in the 18th century, was devoted to mysticism, prayer, religious zeal and joy. So, in addition to touches of ragtime and jazz in this music, you will also hear the contrast between the wild mania of klezmer music (#1, 4, 6) featuring vivid portrayals of dancing and celebration, with the very reflective, and sometimes mournful songs (#2, 3, 5) which evoke cantorial singing.

1. Ufaratsta (And you shall spread forth, from Genesis)
   And you shall spread forth to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south.
2. Achat Sha'alti (One think I ask, from Psalm 27)
   One thing I ask from the Lord, one thing I desire - that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the pleasantness of the Lord and to meditate in His temple.
3. Vay'hi Vishurun Melech (And He was Kind in Jeshurun, from Deuteronomy)
4. Kozatske - Cossack Dance
5. Nigun - the Nigun is a textless melody.
   "Much of the body of hassidic song is wordless, employing only vocalized syllables.
   According to the rebbis, who composed most of the original hassidic songs, melody is of prime importance, bringing one to the heights of true religious fervor. Therefore, Nigunim are perhaps considered the most spiritual of the Hassidic songs." (Paul Schoenfield)
6. Nigun - Dance

Each short piece of Copland's rarely performed Four Piano Blues, is dedicated to a different friend, and each evokes a different blues state - melancholy, wistful, despairing, even jaunty. These haunting pieces demonstrate his gift for conjuring up music that touches very personal inner emotional states through its simplicity and widely-spaced, sonorous jazz chords.

Gershwin is perhaps best known for combining the popular with the classical. These song transcriptions and Preludes for Piano not only show his love and passion for beautiful melody and incisive jazz rhythms, but reveal the depth of his knowledge of important classical composers such as Chopin, Liszt and Debussy.

Scott Joplin is, of course, well known for his use of characteristic syncopated ragtime rhythms. However, his use and blending of lyrical melody, counterpoint, and classical form with those ragtime rhythms very often goes unexpressed in performances. Elite Syncopations and The Easy Winners are very popular examples of rags written in double time, meant for dancing the two-step. Bethena, subtitled, "A Concert Waltz" is an unusual waltz-rag written in triple time, showing Joplin tipping his hat to the waltzes of Chopin and Brahms.

SPECIAL THANKS TO:
Paul Schoenfield and Dick Evans, two of the finest living American artists, for their generosity and spirit; Patrick Muphy and Kathy Jacobs for physically making this possible at the church; Maria Spuller, Charles Stein, Margaret Peterson and Susan Leonard for keeping body and soul together; Andrea and Julia - my daily source of inspiration; my parents, Bud and Doris Howland, for exposing me to all kinds of music and for making sure that my very first piano was a player piano.