The Baroque Beatles Book

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DescriptionExcerpt

Musicologist-conductor-pianist Joshua Rifkin’s The Baroque Beatles Book, featuring Baroque-era arrangements of the Fab Four’s Top 40 hits, is a milestone from the early days of Nonesuch Records and, over the years, has gained legendary status among Beatles fans and classical enthusiasts alike. Newsweek declared the collection “inspired”; the Boston Globe called it “brilliant.”

Description

Musicologist-conductor-pianist Joshua Rifkin’s The Baroque Beatles Book is a milestone from the early days of Nonesuch Records. It began as a marketing concept-cum-youthful prank: How about writing Baroque-era arrangements of the Fab Four’s Top 40 hits, as if Lennon & McCartney were contemporaries of Bach & Handel? Beatlemania and the Baroque were both in fashion with their respective audiences, and the disc became a crossover hit at the height of the 1965 holiday season. But The Baroque Beatles Book was no mere novelty item; over the years it has gained downright legendary status among Beatles fans and classical enthusiasts alike. Newsweek declared the collection “inspired”; the Boston Globe called it “brilliant.”

The 21-year-old Rifkin was fresh out of Juilliard and a stint in the Even Dozen Jug Band, a Greenwich Village folk combo that boasted David Grisman, John Sebastian, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur as members. He was working in the Nonesuch office, helping to repackage the European classical releases that were the label’s stock in trade at the time, when Nonesuch founder Jac Holzman gave him the project and a very tight deadline—plus the wherewithal to hire his favorite freelance classical players. Mark Abrahamson (Judy Collins, Paul Butterfield Blues Band) would produce, with Paul Rothchild (Phil Ochs, The Doors) assisting.

As Rifkin recounts in the liner notes he contributed to this new edition, “With the holiday season looming, we managed to do everything—composing, recording, editing, mastering, packaging—in five mad weeks. I wrote music 10 to 18 hours a day, day in and day out. As I got scores ready, a wonderful staff of copyists picked them up pretty much the minute they left my hands and copied out parts ... I had learned, in my studies, about how Bach and Handel had turned out oratorios or operas at breakneck pace. Now I found myself living it.”

Rifkin would later garner worldwide recognition as the catalyst for the ragtime revival with his best-selling Nonesuch recordings of Scott Joplin’s works. Of course, the Beatles were doing well enough in 1965 without Rifkin’s intercession, but his arrangements for The Baroque Beatles Book perhaps helped facilitate the growing creative dialogue between popular and more high-minded culture, something the Beatles themselves would engage in as the matured. And Rifkin’s spur-of-the-moment inspiration has proven to be just as much fun 40 years later as the pop songs upon which it is based.

ProductionCredits

PRODUCTION CREDITS
Produced by Mark Abramson
Assisted by Paul Rothchild
Production Supervisor: Jac Holzman
Reissue prepared by Arthur Moorhead
Remastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, Maine, January 2009

All songs written by John Lennon & Paul McCartney

Cover art: Roger Hane
Original cover design: William S. Harvey
Reissue design by Kasia Ozmin at togetherwecreate

Nonesuch Selection Number

517948

Number of Discs in Set
1disc
Album Status
Artist Name
Joshua Rifkin
MusicianDetails

MUSICIANS
Baroque Ensemble of the Merseyside Kammermusikgesellschaft
Joshua Rifkin, conductor
Murray the Klavierkitzler (6)
Harold Brienes, Helpentenor (7-10)
The Canby Singers, Edward Tatnall Canby, director (7-10)

reissues?
reissues
Cover Art
UPC/Price
Label
CD+MP3
UPC
075597983227BUN
Label
MP3
Price
9.00
UPC
075597983210
  • 517948

News & Reviews

  • Joshua Rifkin's 1970 Nonesuch recording of Scott Joplin piano rags—which ignited a national passion for ragtime jazz and, wrote New York magazine, "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival" of the early '70s—has been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Recordings in the Hall of Fame are at least twenty-five years old and exhibit qualitative or historical significance, determined by a committee of eminent and knowledgeable professionals from all branches of the recording arts, with final approval by the Recording Academy's National Board of Trustees.

  • Four decades ago, Nonesuch Records released Joshua Rifkin's recordings of Scott Joplin's Piano Rags that went on to ignite a national passion for ragtime jazz and "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival," as New York magazine wrote. On January 30, Rifkin will make his debut at New York's (Le) Poisson Rouge performing the music of Joplin and J.S. Bach in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the album.

Buy Now

  • About This Album

    Musicologist-conductor-pianist Joshua Rifkin’s The Baroque Beatles Book is a milestone from the early days of Nonesuch Records. It began as a marketing concept-cum-youthful prank: How about writing Baroque-era arrangements of the Fab Four’s Top 40 hits, as if Lennon & McCartney were contemporaries of Bach & Handel? Beatlemania and the Baroque were both in fashion with their respective audiences, and the disc became a crossover hit at the height of the 1965 holiday season. But The Baroque Beatles Book was no mere novelty item; over the years it has gained downright legendary status among Beatles fans and classical enthusiasts alike. Newsweek declared the collection “inspired”; the Boston Globe called it “brilliant.”

    The 21-year-old Rifkin was fresh out of Juilliard and a stint in the Even Dozen Jug Band, a Greenwich Village folk combo that boasted David Grisman, John Sebastian, and Geoff and Maria Muldaur as members. He was working in the Nonesuch office, helping to repackage the European classical releases that were the label’s stock in trade at the time, when Nonesuch founder Jac Holzman gave him the project and a very tight deadline—plus the wherewithal to hire his favorite freelance classical players. Mark Abrahamson (Judy Collins, Paul Butterfield Blues Band) would produce, with Paul Rothchild (Phil Ochs, The Doors) assisting.

    As Rifkin recounts in the liner notes he contributed to this new edition, “With the holiday season looming, we managed to do everything—composing, recording, editing, mastering, packaging—in five mad weeks. I wrote music 10 to 18 hours a day, day in and day out. As I got scores ready, a wonderful staff of copyists picked them up pretty much the minute they left my hands and copied out parts ... I had learned, in my studies, about how Bach and Handel had turned out oratorios or operas at breakneck pace. Now I found myself living it.”

    Rifkin would later garner worldwide recognition as the catalyst for the ragtime revival with his best-selling Nonesuch recordings of Scott Joplin’s works. Of course, the Beatles were doing well enough in 1965 without Rifkin’s intercession, but his arrangements for The Baroque Beatles Book perhaps helped facilitate the growing creative dialogue between popular and more high-minded culture, something the Beatles themselves would engage in as the matured. And Rifkin’s spur-of-the-moment inspiration has proven to be just as much fun 40 years later as the pop songs upon which it is based.

    Credits

    MUSICIANS
    Baroque Ensemble of the Merseyside Kammermusikgesellschaft
    Joshua Rifkin, conductor
    Murray the Klavierkitzler (6)
    Harold Brienes, Helpentenor (7-10)
    The Canby Singers, Edward Tatnall Canby, director (7-10)

    PRODUCTION CREDITS
    Produced by Mark Abramson
    Assisted by Paul Rothchild
    Production Supervisor: Jac Holzman
    Reissue prepared by Arthur Moorhead
    Remastered by Robert C. Ludwig at Gateway Mastering, Portland, Maine, January 2009

    All songs written by John Lennon & Paul McCartney

    Cover art: Roger Hane
    Original cover design: William S. Harvey
    Reissue design by Kasia Ozmin at togetherwecreate