In the late 1960s, William Bolcom developed an interest in ragtime piano that helped spur a renewal of interest in the music. With this discovery he found his mature style, a distinctively American eclecticism. Included on this recording are Recuerdos (Reminiscences), an evocation of late nineteenth-century Latin American dances, and Frescoes, one of Bolcom’s most powerful works in its scope and colours. Concluding this selection is Bolcom’s suite The Garden of Eden, which uses the ragtime idiom to tell the biblical story of the Fall. Through Eden’s Gates, its final movement, “conjures the image of Adam and Eve calmly cakewalking their way out of Paradise”.