A Style Analysis of William Bolcom''s Complete Rags For Piano

William Bolcom: Complete Rags for Piano is a collection of twenty-two of Bolcom''s piano rags written between 1967 and 1993. In this nook, 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.