The “Maple Leaf Rag”, Joplin’s first work published by Stark, is considered one of the first hit songs on sheet music and sold over 500,000 copies in the first 10 years of its publication (4). For Stark, this was the first Black and first ragtime composer he conducted business with (3), and this proved to be extremely profitable. In 1898, he first began submitting scores to publishing companies, but it wasn’t until meeting John Stillwell Stark, a white music publisher and music store owner, and playing for him in his store in 1899 that he entered a publishing contract. Like many composers of classic rag, Joplin was initially a jig pianist who then ventured into classic rag. Cover art and first page of Stark Music Co.’s version of Joplin’s “Rag-Time Dance”. Arguably the most famous classic rag composer was Scott Joplin, with his “Maple Leaf Rag” being the most popular of his works (3). Classic rag was published as sheet music and was not intended to be improvised off of it was designed to be played exactly as written. It wasn’t until 1895 when the first ragtime tune, “La Pas La Mas”, was transcribed and actually published, starting a new subgenre within ragtime known as classic rag (2). As a result, they would play in the clubs, saloons, and other social spaces around the perimeter of the fair, which is where their music thrived (1). During the Chicago World Fair, many Black jig piano players were hired to play music written by white composers at Fair events, but they were not allowed to play their own music. This early ragtime was referred to as jig music, and was all but shunned by white populations. Known by such a name due to its highly syncopated nature (which was originally referred to as “ragging the time”), ragtime emerged initially in the Mississippi Valley as bar, cabaret, and club music played by “piano-thumping… black piano professors” (1) that was mostly improvisatory. We remember Scott Joplin for his jaunty rhythms, fiendish workouts for the fingers, and courage in finding a powerful musical voice in a world that didn’t always welcome him.Ragtime is a genre of music created by Black pianists that was popular between 18. In 2020, he has nearly 200,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, where one of his most popular tracks is an arrangement by violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman of ‘The Ragtime Dance’ for violin. Joplin died in a mental facility, convinced he had failed at his goal – to become an African American composer of “serious music”. There are no existing manuscripts in his hand, and only three photographs of him have survived. We have little left of the man behind the music. Then in 1973, came Academy Award-winning film The Sting, that used several of Joplin’s compositions including ‘The Entertainer’ and ‘Solace’. His untimely death, caused by syphilis which descended into dementia, marked the end of ragtime and a sad lapse in interest around his music.īut his compositions were rediscovered and had a second wave of popularity in the early 1970s, when Joshua Rifkin released an extremely successful album of his pieces. Treemonisha: Overture (Scott Joplin) Joplin’s legacy Read more: Meet George Walker, the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music > “He found it very difficult to get his work performed.” “Joplin was way ahead of his time,” Henry adds. He writes for The Times: “What is great about Treemonisha is that the heroine does not die like most classical leading ladies – by the knife, by poison or yearning for a man – but becomes a leader of the community. Its moral message is education as a fundamental right for all African Americans.Ĭomedian Lenny Henry recently championed the opera in a documentary on forgotten Black classical composers. The opera, a celebration of African American culture, combines the Romanticism of the early 20th century with Black folk song tradition. A music historian at the time called the performance a “semimiracle”. Treemonisha, sometimes erroneously referred to as a “ragtime opera”, was never staged during Joplin’s lifetime – only being confirmed in its entirety in 1972, by the Houston Grand Opera. But he also wrote two operas, one – Treemonisha (1911) – for which he was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1976. History has remembered Joplin as the “ragtime guy”. Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer' played on a 1915 piano Joplin’s operas
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