![]() ![]() It has been referred to an archetypal Rag meaning that it set the tone and structure for most Rags that followed. It’s a wonderful display of how Joplin played, I would suggest, and makes full use of the colours and range of the piano. There is no introduction to the piece like The Entertainer, but an upbeat from the bass and we are plunged into the melody. ![]() This was probably the first Rag Joplin published and one that has enjoyed many years in the spotlight. Joplin himself made his living as a piano teacher and composer, dying tragically at the age of forty-eight.Įven though the Entertainer has become the winner of best-known Rag, it was The Maple Leaf Rag that assured Joplin his reputation. The light-hearted nature of the music and compelling tune has made this rag amongst the favourite of all Joplin’s oeuvre. This is not a simple piece to play as like most Rags, uses a stride, a left-hand piano technique the effectively adds both bass line and chords to the melody. The piece enjoyed a resurrection in the 1970’s when it was brilliantly used in the film titled “The Sting”. It was written around 1902 and gained steadily in popularity. This is doubtless the most famous piece of Ragtime music ever composed. The Entertainer by Scott Joplin (1868-1917) Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1994.1. Dancing to a Black Man's Tune: A Life of Scott Joplin. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.Ĭurtis, Susan. The King of Ragtime: A Biography of Scott Joplin. (accessed January 7, 2002).īerlin, Edward. "A Biography of Scott Joplin." The Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978.īerlin, Edward. The success of the film, which won many Academy Awards, initiated a ragtime renaissance.īenson, Kathleen, and James Haskins. Scott Joplin was long forgotten by the public at the time of the release of The Sting (1973), a film whose score consisted of Joplin rags. Unfortunately, Treemonisha was performed only once during Joplin's lifetime, in 1915. During the final decade of his life, he worked on Treemonisha (1911), a second ragtime opera, whose key theme was the desperate need for education within the African American community. His more important compositions-which, predictably, were not his most popular in the mass market-included The Ragtime Dance (1902), a ragtime ballet, and The Guest of Honor (1903), a ragtime opera. He viewed himself not as a writer of popular music, however, but as a serious composer. Joplin earned his living from sheet music sales and by teaching and performing. It was followed by "Peacherine Rag" (1901), "Augustan Club Waltz" (1901), "A Breeze from Alabama" (1902), "Elite Syncopation" (1902), "The Entertainer" (1902), "The Strenuous Life" (1902), "Gladiolus Rag" (1907), "Pine Apple Rag" (1908), and "Solace-A Mexican Serenade" (1909). Joplin's compositions soon were published during his lifetime, his most fabled was "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899). Smith College for Negroes and became a member of the Queen City Band, an all-black group that performed at public and private events. In the 1890s, he found himself in Sedalia, Missouri, where he took music courses at the George R. He blended all of these influences into his own rhythmically adventurous brand of music, which he began performing while still an adolescent. He began playing the piano and studied music with a German-born teacher, from whom he learned the manner in which European musical compositions were structured. While growing up in Texas amidst a family of sharecroppers, Joplin heard-and was influenced by-African American work songs and spirituals as well as European waltzes and marches. At the time, it was labeled "the folk music of the American city," and Joplin was famed as the "King of Ragtime Writers." Ragtime is a lively, melodic style of music that, at the turn of the twentieth century, was acknowledged as fresh and uniquely American. When one thinks of ragtime, one thinks of Scott Joplin, a pioneering African American musician and composer. ![]()
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