Scott Joplin
Encyclopedia
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime
compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces
, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag
", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.
Joplin was born into a musical African American
family of laborers in Northeast Texas
, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. During the late 1880s he travelled around the American South
as an itinerant musician, and went to Chicago for the World's Fair
of 1893 which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.
Publication of his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame and had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life with royalties of one cent per sale, equivalent to cents per sale in current value. During his lifetime, Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems, which contributed to the loss of his first opera, A Guest of Honor
. He continued to write ragtime compositions, and moved to New York in 1907. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form which made him famous, without much monetary success. His second opera, Treemonisha
, was not received well at its partially staged performance in 1915. He died from complications of tertiary syphilis
in 1917.
Joplin's music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin's rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin
, followed by the Academy Award–winning movie The Sting
which featured several of his compositions, such as "The Entertainer
". The opera Treemonisha was finally produced in full to wide acclaim in 1972. In 1976, Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize
.
in 1867, just outside of Texarkana
. Joplin, born to Giles Joplin and Florence Givins, was the second of six children. Joplin's birth, like many others, represented the first post-slavery generation of African Americans. Although for many years his birth date was accepted as November 24, 1868, research has revealed that this is almost certainly inaccurate – the most likely approximate date being the second half of 1867. In addition to Scott, other children of Giles and Florence were Monroe, Robert, Rose, William, and Johnny. His father was an ex-slave from North Carolina
and his mother was a freeborn African American woman from Kentucky
. After moving to Texarkana a few years following Joplin's birth, Giles began working as a common laborer for the railroad. Florence did laundry and cleaning for additional income. Joplin was given a rudimentary musical education by his musical family, Florence playing the banjo and singing, and Giles playing and teaching the violin to Scott, Robert and William; at the age of seven he was allowed to play piano in both a neighbor's house and at the home of an attorney while his mother worked.
At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Joplin left the family for another woman, leaving Florence to provide for her children through domestic work. Biographer Susan Curtis speculated that his mother's support of Joplin's musical education was an important causal factor in this separation; his father argued that it took the boy away from practical employment which would have supplemented the family income.
According to a family friend, the young Joplin was serious and ambitious. While in elementary school, he spent his after-school hours studying music and learning to play piano. While a few local teachers aided him, he received most of his serious music education from Julius Weiss
, a German-Jewish
music professor who had immigrated to the United States from Germany
. Weiss had studied music at a university in Germany and was listed in town records as a "Professor of music." Impressed by Joplin's talent, and realizing his family's dire straits, Weiss taught him free of charge. He tutored the 11-year-old Joplin until he was 16, during which time he introduced him to folk
and classical music, including opera, sometimes playing the classics for him along with describing the great composers. Weiss supported the young composer's ambitions and helped his mother acquire a used piano from another student. Joplin, according to his wife Lottie, never forgot Weiss, and in his later years, when he achieved fame as a composer, sent his former teacher "gifts of money when he was old and ill," until Weiss died.
Joplin played music at church gatherings and for non-religious entertainments such as African American dances. Although it is likely he played well-known dances of the era, "waltz
es, polka
s, and schottische
s", it is possible he played his own compositions; biographer Curtis describes an eye-witness, Zenobia Campbell, recalling him playing his own compositions; "He did not have to play anybody else's music. He made up his own, and it was beautiful; he just got his music out of the air."
By the early 1890s, Ragtime had become popular among African-Americans in the cities of St. Louis
and Chicago. In 1893 large numbers of African-American musicians, including Joplin, made their way to Chicago to perform for the visitors at the World's Fair. They found work in the cafés, saloons and brothels that lined the fair and the city's seedy and corrupt "Tenderloin" district. While in Chicago, Joplin formed his first band and began arranging music for the group to perform. Although the World's Fair was "not congenial to African Americans," he still found that his music, as well as that of other black performers, was popular with visitors. The exposition was attended by 27 million Americans and had a profound effect on many areas of American cultural life, including ragtime. Although specific information is sparse, numerous sources have credited the Chicago World Fair with spreading the popularity of ragtime. By 1897 ragtime had become a national craze in American cities, and was described by the St. Louis Dispatch as "a veritable call of the wild, which mightily stirred the pulses of city bred people."
. At first, Joplin stayed with the family of Arthur Marshall
, at the time a 13-year old boy but later one of Joplin's students and a rag-time composer in his own right. There is no record of Joplin having a permanent residence in the town until 1904, as Joplin was making a living as a touring musician.
In the 1890s, the town had a population of approximately 14,000 and was the center of commerce and transport for the region. The town's saloons and brothels of the red-light district
on Main Street, nicknamed "Battle Row", provided employment for musicians, and it is likely that Joplin worked in this area. The town was attractive for other reasons; race-relations
between Whites and Blacks in Sedalia were relatively good, especially when compared to other similar communities in Missouri in this period, there is no record of public lynchings in the area during the 1890s, there were several prominent black citizens who held minor positions in the Republican Party
, and the George R. Smith College
, one of the nation's first colleges for the education of blacks, opened in 1894. In addition, Sedalia was described by a black resident of the town at the time as the "musical town of the West", because music was a major leisure-time activity.
There is little precise evidence known about Joplin's activities at this time, although he performed as a solo musician at dances and at the major black clubs in Sedalia, the "Black 400" club, and the "Maple Leaf Club". He performed in the Queen City Cornet Band, and his own six-piece dance orchestra. A tour with his own singing group, the Texas Medley Quartet, gave him his first opportunity to publish his own compositions and it is known that he went to Syracuse, New York
and Texas. Two businessmen from New York published Joplin's first two works, the songs "Please Say You Will", and "A Picture of her Face" in 1895. Joplin's visit to Temple, Texas
enabled him to have three pieces published there in 1896, including the "Crush Collision March" which commemorated a planned train crash
on the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad
on September 15 which he may have witnessed. The March was described by one of Joplin's biographers as a "special... early essay in ragtime". While in Sedalia he was teaching piano to students who included Arthur Marshall, composer and pianist Brun Campbell
, and Scott Hayden
, all of whom became ragtime composers in their own right. In turn, Joplin enrolled at the George R. Smith College
, where he apparently studied "advanced harmony and composition". The College records were destroyed in a fire in 1925, and biographer Edward A. Berlin notes that it was unlikely that a small college for African-Americans would be able to provide such a course.
In 1899, Joplin married Belle, the sister-in-law of collaborator Scott Hayden
. Although there were hundreds of rags in print by the time of the "Maple Leaf Rag's" publication, Joplin was not far behind. His first published rag, "Original Rags
" (March 1899), had been completed in 1897, the same year as the first ragtime work in print, the "Mississippi Rag" by William Krell
. The "Maple Leaf Rag" was likely to have been known in Sedalia before its publication in 1899; Brun Campbell claimed to have seen the manuscript of the work in around 1898. The exact circumstances which led to the Maple Leaf Rag's publication are unknown, and there are a number of different versions of the event which contradict each other. After several unsuccessful approaches to publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stillwell Stark
, a retailer of musical instruments who later became his most important publisher, on 10 August 1899 for a 1% royalty on all sales of the rag, with a minimum sales price of 25 cents. It is possible that the rag was named after the Maple Leaf Club, although there is no direct evidence to prove the link, and there were many other possible sources for the name in and around Sedalia at the time.
There have been many claims about the sales of the "Maple Leaf Rag", for example that Joplin was the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music. Joplin's first biographer, Rudi Blesh
wrote that during its first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, and became "the first great instrumental sheet music hit in America". However, research by Joplin's later biographer Edward A. Berlin demonstrated that this was not the case; the initial print-run of 400 took one year to sell, and under the terms of Joplin's contract with a 1% royalty would have given Joplin an income of $4 (or approximately $ at current prices). Later sales were steady and would have given Joplin an income which would have covered his expenses; in 1909 estimated sales would have given him an income of $600 annually (approximately $ in current prices).
The "Maple Leaf Rag" did serve as a model for the hundreds of rags to come from future composers, especially in the development of classic ragtime. After the publication of the "Maple Leaf Rag", Joplin was soon being described as "King of rag time writers", not least by himself on the covers of his own work, such as "The Easy Winners
" and "Elite Syncopations".
After the Joplins' move to St. Louis in early 1900, they had a baby daughter who died only a few months after birth. Joplin's relationship with his wife was difficult as she had no interest in music; they eventually separated and then divorced. About this time, Joplin collaborated with Scott Hayden in the composition of four rags. It was in St. Louis that Joplin produced some of his best-known works, including "The Entertainer
", "March Majestic", and the short theatrical work "The Ragtime Dance
".
In June 1904, Joplin married Freddie Alexander of Little Rock, Arkansas
, the young woman to whom he had dedicated "The Chrysanthemum" (1904). She died on September 10, 1904 of complications resulting from a cold, ten weeks after their wedding. Joplin's first work copyrighted after Freddie's death, "Bethena
" (1905), was described by one biographer as "an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of ragtime waltz
es".
During this time, Joplin created an opera company of 30 people and produced his first opera A Guest of Honor
for a national tour. It is not certain how many productions were staged, or even if this was an all-black show or a racially mixed production (which would have been unusual for 1903). During the tour, either in Springfield, Illinois
, or Pittsburg, Kansas
, someone associated with the company stole the box office receipts. Joplin could not meet the company's payroll or pay for its lodgings at a theatrical boarding house. It is believed that the score for A Guest of Honor was lost and perhaps destroyed because of non-payment of the company's boarding house bill.
In 1907, Joplin moved to New York City
, which he believed was the best place to find a producer for a new opera. After his move to New York, Joplin met Lottie Stokes, whom he married in 1909. In 1911, unable to find a publisher, Joplin undertook the financial burden of publishing Treemonisha
himself in piano-vocal format. In 1915, as a last ditch effort to see it performed, he invited a small audience to hear it at a rehearsal hall in Harlem
. Poorly staged and with only Joplin on piano accompaniment, it was "a miserable failure", the public being not yet ready for "crude" black musical forms, so different from the style of European grand opera of that time. The audience, including potential backers, was indifferent and walked out. Scott writes that "after a disastrous single performance ... Joplin suffered a breakdown. He was bankrupt, discouraged, and worn out." He concludes that few American artists of his generation faced such obstacles: "Treemonisha went unnoticed and unreviewed, largely because Joplin had abandoned commercial music in favor of art music, a field closed to African Americans." In fact, it was not until the 1970s that the opera received a full theatrical staging.
In 1914, Joplin and Lottie self-published his "Magnetic Rag
" using the name the "Scott Joplin Music Company" which had been formed the previous December. Biographer Vera Brodsky Lawrence speculates that Joplin was aware of his advancing deterioration due to syphilis
and was "consciously racing against time." In her sleeve notes on the 1992 Deutsche Grammophon
release of Treemonisha
she notes that he "plunged feverishly into the task of orchestrating his opera, day and night, with his friend Sam Patterson standing by to copy out the parts, page by page, as each page of the full score was completed."
. After Joplin's death at the age of just 49, from advanced syphilis, he was buried in a pauper's grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally honored in 1974.
.
When Joplin was learning the piano, serious musical circles condemned ragtime because of its association with the vulgar and inane songs "cranked out by the tune-smiths of Tin Pan Alley
." As a composer Joplin refined ragtime, elevating it above the low and unrefined form played by the "wandering honky-tonk pianists... playing mere dance music" of popular imagination. This new art form, the classic rag
, combined Afro-American folk music's syncopation
and nineteenth-century European romanticism
, with its harmonic schemes and its march-like tempos. In the words of one critic, "ragtime was basically... an Afro-American version of the polka, or its analog, the Sousa
-style march." With this as a foundation, Joplin intended his compositions to be played exactly as he wrote them – without improvisation. Joplin wrote his rags as "classical" music in miniature form in order to raise ragtime above its "cheap bordello" origins and produced work which opera historian Elise Kirk described as "...more tuneful, contrapuntal, infectious, and harmonically colorful than any others of his era."
It has been speculated that Joplin's achievements were influenced by his classically trained German music teacher Julius Weiss
, who may have brought a polka
rhythmic sensibility from the old country to the 11-year old Joplin. As Curtis put it "The educated German could open up the door to a world of learning and music of which young Joplin was largely unaware."
Joplin's first, and most significant hit, the "Maple Leaf Rag", was described as the "archetype" of the classic rag, influencing subsequent rag composers for at least 12 years after its initial publication thanks to its rhythmic patterns, melody lines, and harmony, although with the exception of Joseph Lamb
they generally failed to enlarge upon it.
The opera's setting is a former slave community in an isolated forest near Joplin's childhood town Texarkana in September 1884. The plot centers on an 18 year old woman Treemonisha who is taught to read by a white woman, and then leads her community against the influence of conjurers who prey on ignorance and superstition. Treemonisha is abducted and is about to be thrown into a wasps' nest when her friend Remus rescues her. The community realizes the value of education and the liability of their ignorance before choosing her as their teacher and leader.
Joplin wrote both the score and the libretto for the opera, which largely follows the form of European opera with many conventional arias, ensembles and choruses. In addition the themes of superstition and mysticism which are evident in Treemonisha are common in the operatic tradition, and certain aspects of the plot echo devices in the work of the German composer Richard Wagner
(of which Joplin was aware); a sacred tree under which Treemonisha is found recalls the tree from which Siegmund takes his enchanted sword in Die Walküre
, and the retelling of the heroine's origins echos aspects of the opera Siegfried
. In addition, African-American folk tales also influence the story, with the wasp nest incident being similar to the story of Br'er Rabbit
and the briar patch.
Treemonisha is not a ragtime opera because Joplin employed the styles of ragtime and other black music sparingly, using them to convey "racial character", and to celebrate the music of his childhood at the end of the 19th century. The opera has been seen as a valuable record of rural black music from 1870s–1890s re-created by a "skilled and sensitive participant".
Berlin speculates about parallels between the plot and Joplin's own life. He notes that Lottie Joplin (the composer's third wife) saw a connection between the character Treemonisha's wish to lead her people out of ignorance, and a similar desire in the composer. In addition, it has been speculated that Treemonisha represents Freddie, Joplin's second wife, because the date of the opera's setting was likely to have been the month of her birth.
At the time of the opera's publication in 1911, the American Musician and Art Journal praised it as "an entirely new form of operatic art". Later critics have also praised the opera as occupying a special place in American history, with its heroine "a startlingly early voice for modern civil rights causes, notably the importance of education and knowledge to African American advancement." Curtis's conclusion is similar: "In the end, Treemonisha offered a celebration of literacy, learning, hard work, and community solidarity as the best formula for advancing the race." Berlin describes it as a "fine opera, certainly more interesting than most operas then being written in the United States", but later states that Joplin's own libretto showed the composer "was not a competent dramatist" with the book not up to the same quality as the music.
newspaper in 1898, and fellow ragtime composers Arthur Marshall
and Joe Jordan
both said that he played the instrument well. However, the son of publisher John Stark stated that Joplin was a rather mediocre pianist and that he composed on paper, rather than at the piano. Artie Matthews
recalled the "delight" the St. Louis players took in outplaying Joplin.
While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano roll
s for use in mechanical player piano
s. All seven were made in 1916. Of these, the six released under the Connorized label show evidence of significant editing, probably by William Axtmann, the staff arranger at Connorized. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin reached St. Louis he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis
, the disease that took his life in 1917. The second roll recording of "Maple Leaf Rag" on the UniRecord label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "... shocking... disorganized and completely distressing to hear." While there is disagreement among piano-roll experts about the accuracy of the reproduction of a player's performance, Berlin notes that the "Maple Leaf Rag" roll was "painfully bad" and likely to be the truest record of Joplin's playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life.
Joshua Rifkin
, a leading Joplin recording artist, wrote that "a pervasive sense of lyricism infuses his work, and even at his most high-spirited, he cannot repress a hint of melancholy or adversity... He had little in common with the fast and flashy school of ragtime that grew up after him." Joplin historian Bill Ryerson adds that "In the hands of authentic practitioners like Joplin, ragtime was a disciplined form capable of astonishing variety and subtlety... Joplin did for the rag what Chopin did for the mazurka
. His style ranged from tones of torment to stunning serenades that incorporated the bolero
and the tango."
Joplin biographer Susan Curtis expands on those observations:
Composer and actor Max Morath
found it striking that the vast majority of Joplin's work did not enjoy the popularity of the "Maple Leaf Rag", because while the compositions were "of increasing lyrical beauty and delicate syncopation" they remained "obscure" and "unheralded" during his lifetime. Joplin apparently realized that his music was ahead of its time: As music historian Ian Whitcomb mentions that Joplin "opined that 'Maple Leaf Rag' would make him 'King of Ragtime Composers' but he also knew that he would not be a pop hero in his own lifetime. 'When I'm dead twenty-five years, people are going to recognize me,' he told a friend." Just over thirty years later he was recognized, and later historian Rudi Blesh would write a large book about ragtime, which he dedicated to the memory of Joplin.
Although he was penniless and disappointed at the end of his life, Joplin set the standard for ragtime compositions and played a key role in the development of ragtime music. And as a pioneer composer and performer, he helped pave the way for young black artists to reach American audiences of both races. After his death, jazz historian Floyd Levin noted: "those few who realized his greatness bowed their heads in sorrow. This was the passing of the king of all ragtime writers, the man who gave America a genuine native music."
and novelty piano
, emerged. Even so, jazz bands and recording artists such as Tommy Dorsey
in 1936, Jelly Roll Morton
in 1939 and J. Russell Robinson
in 1947 released recordings of Joplin compositions. "Maple Leaf Rag" was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records.
In the 1960s, a small-scale reawakening of interest in classic ragtime was underway among some American music scholars such as Trebor Tichenor, William Bolcom
, William Albright
and Rudi Blesh
. In 1968, Bolcom and Albright interested Joshua Rifkin
, a young musicologist, in the body of Joplin's work. Together, they hosted an occasional ragtime-and-early-jazz evening on WBAI
radio.
In November 1970, Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
on the classical
label Nonesuch
. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at number 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at number 4, and a combined set of both volumes at number 3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. In the top 7 spots on that chart, 6 of the entries were recordings of Joplin's work, three of which were Rifkin's. Record stores found themselves for the first time putting ragtime in the classical music section. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award
categories: Best Album Notes
and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
. Rifkin was also under consideration for a third Grammy for a recording not related to Joplin, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. He did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC
Television and a sell-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall
. In 1979 Alan Rich
in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disk Nonesuch Records
"created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In January 1971, Harold C. Schonberg
, music critic at the New York Times, having just heard the Rifkin album, wrote a featured Sunday edition article entitled "Scholars, Get Busy on Scott Joplin!" Schonberg's call to action has been described as the catalyst for classical music scholars, the sort of people Joplin had battled all his life, to conclude that Joplin was a genius. Vera Brodsky Lawrence of the New York Public Library
published a two-volume set of Joplin works in June 1971, entitled The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, stimulating a wider interest in the performance of Joplin's music that included a recording called Joplin: The Red Back Book by Gunther Schuller
, a french horn player and music professor.
Marvin Hamlisch
lightly adapted Joplin's music for the 1973 film The Sting
, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation on April 2, 1974. His version of "The Entertainer" reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100
and the American Top 40
music chart on May 18, 1974, prompting The New York Times
to write, "the whole nation has begun to take notice". Thanks to the film and its score, Joplin's work became appreciated in both the popular and classical music world, becoming (in the words of music magazine Record World
), the "classical phenomenon of the decade".
On October 22, 1971, excerpts from Treemonisha were presented in concert form at Lincoln Center
with musical performances by Bolcom, Rifkin and Mary Lou Williams
supporting a group of singers. Finally, on January 28, 1972, T.J. Anderson's orchestration of Treemonisha was staged for two consecutive nights, sponsored by the Afro-American Music Workshop of Morehouse College
in Atlanta, with singers accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
under the direction of Robert Shaw
, and choreography by Katherine Dunham
. Schonberg remarked in February 1972 that the "Scott Joplin Renaissance" was in full swing and still growing. In May 1975, Treemonisha was staged in a full opera production by the Houston Grand Opera
. The company toured briefly, then settled into an eight-week run in New York on Broadway at the Palace Theater in October and November. This appearance was directed by Gunther Schuller, and soprano Carmen Balthrop alternated with Kathleen Battle
as the title character. An "original Broadway cast" recording was produced. Because of the lack of national exposure given to the brief Morehouse College staging of the opera in 1972, many Joplin scholars wrote that the Houston Grand Opera's 1975 show was the first full production.
1974 saw the Royal Ballet, under director Kenneth MacMillan
, create Elite Syncopations a ballet based on tunes by Joplin and other composers of the era. That year also brought the premiere by the Los Angeles Ballet of Red Back Book, choreographed by John Clifford
to Joplin rags from the collection of the same name, including both solo piano performances and arrangements for full orchestra.
by the National Academy of Popular Music
.
1976: Joplin was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize
for his special contribution to American music.
1977: Motown Productions produced Scott Joplin, a biographical film
starring Billy Dee Williams
as Joplin, released by Universal Pictures
.
1983: the United States Postal Service
issued a stamp of the composer as part of its Black Heritage commemorative series.
1989: Joplin received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame
.
2002: a collection of Joplin's own performances recorded on piano rolls in the 1900s was included by the National Recording Preservation Board
in the Library of Congress
National Recording Registry. The board annually selects songs that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
compositions, and was later dubbed "The King of Ragtime". During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces
Classic Rag
Classic Rag is a term used to describe the style of ragtime composition pioneered by Scott Joplin and the Missouri school of ragtime composers...
, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag
Maple Leaf Rag
The "Maple Leaf Rag" is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. As a result Joplin was called the "King...
", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.
Joplin was born into a musical African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
family of laborers in Northeast Texas
Northeast Texas
Northeast Texas is a region in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Texas. It is geographically centered around two metropolitan areas strung along Interstate 20: Tyler in the west and Longview/Marshall to the east...
, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. During the late 1880s he travelled around the American South
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
as an itinerant musician, and went to Chicago for the World's Fair
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
of 1893 which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.
Publication of his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame and had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life with royalties of one cent per sale, equivalent to cents per sale in current value. During his lifetime, Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems, which contributed to the loss of his first opera, A Guest of Honor
A Guest of Honor
A Guest of Honor was the first opera created by Scott Joplin, the celebrated ragtime composer. The focus of the production was a 1901 White House dinner hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt for the civil rights leader and educator Booker T. Washington...
. He continued to write ragtime compositions, and moved to New York in 1907. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form which made him famous, without much monetary success. His second opera, Treemonisha
Treemonisha
Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...
, was not received well at its partially staged performance in 1915. He died from complications of tertiary syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
in 1917.
Joplin's music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin's rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
, followed by the Academy Award–winning movie The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
which featured several of his compositions, such as "The Entertainer
The Entertainer (rag)
"The Entertainer" is sub-titled "A rag time two step", which was a form of dance popular until about 1911, and a style which was common among rags written at the time.Its structure is: Intro AA BB A CC Intro2 DD....
". The opera Treemonisha was finally produced in full to wide acclaim in 1972. In 1976, Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
.
Early life
Joplin was born in Northeast TexasNortheast Texas
Northeast Texas is a region in the northeast corner of the U.S. state of Texas. It is geographically centered around two metropolitan areas strung along Interstate 20: Tyler in the west and Longview/Marshall to the east...
in 1867, just outside of Texarkana
Texarkana, Texas
Texarkana is a city in Bowie County, Texas, United States. It effectively functions as one half of a city which crosses a state line — the other half, the city of Texarkana, Arkansas, lies on the other side of State Line Avenue...
. Joplin, born to Giles Joplin and Florence Givins, was the second of six children. Joplin's birth, like many others, represented the first post-slavery generation of African Americans. Although for many years his birth date was accepted as November 24, 1868, research has revealed that this is almost certainly inaccurate – the most likely approximate date being the second half of 1867. In addition to Scott, other children of Giles and Florence were Monroe, Robert, Rose, William, and Johnny. His father was an ex-slave from North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
and his mother was a freeborn African American woman from Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
. After moving to Texarkana a few years following Joplin's birth, Giles began working as a common laborer for the railroad. Florence did laundry and cleaning for additional income. Joplin was given a rudimentary musical education by his musical family, Florence playing the banjo and singing, and Giles playing and teaching the violin to Scott, Robert and William; at the age of seven he was allowed to play piano in both a neighbor's house and at the home of an attorney while his mother worked.
At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Joplin left the family for another woman, leaving Florence to provide for her children through domestic work. Biographer Susan Curtis speculated that his mother's support of Joplin's musical education was an important causal factor in this separation; his father argued that it took the boy away from practical employment which would have supplemented the family income.
According to a family friend, the young Joplin was serious and ambitious. While in elementary school, he spent his after-school hours studying music and learning to play piano. While a few local teachers aided him, he received most of his serious music education from Julius Weiss
Julius Weiss
Julius Weiss was a German music professor, best known for being Scott Joplin's "first piano teacher." He is credited with inspiring and influencing Joplin, considered "the king of ragtime," during his early years. He taught Joplin music and other subjects for a number of years, beginning when...
, a German-Jewish
History of the Jews in Germany
The presence of Jews in Germany has been established since the early 4th century. The community prospered under Charlemagne, but suffered during the Crusades...
music professor who had immigrated to the United States from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. Weiss had studied music at a university in Germany and was listed in town records as a "Professor of music." Impressed by Joplin's talent, and realizing his family's dire straits, Weiss taught him free of charge. He tutored the 11-year-old Joplin until he was 16, during which time he introduced him to folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
and classical music, including opera, sometimes playing the classics for him along with describing the great composers. Weiss supported the young composer's ambitions and helped his mother acquire a used piano from another student. Joplin, according to his wife Lottie, never forgot Weiss, and in his later years, when he achieved fame as a composer, sent his former teacher "gifts of money when he was old and ill," until Weiss died.
Joplin played music at church gatherings and for non-religious entertainments such as African American dances. Although it is likely he played well-known dances of the era, "waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es, polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
s, and schottische
Schottische
The schottische is a partnered country dance, that apparently originated in Bohemia. It was popular in Victorian era ballrooms as a part of the Bohemian folk-dance craze and left its traces in folk music of countries such as Argentina , Finland , France, Italy, Norway , Portugal and Brazil , Spain ...
s", it is possible he played his own compositions; biographer Curtis describes an eye-witness, Zenobia Campbell, recalling him playing his own compositions; "He did not have to play anybody else's music. He made up his own, and it was beautiful; he just got his music out of the air."
Life in the Southern states and Chicago
In the late 1880s, having performed at various local events as a teenager, Joplin chose to give up his only steady employment as a laborer with the railroad and left Texarkana to work as traveling musician. He was soon to discover that there were few opportunities for black pianists, however; besides the church, brothels were one of the few options for obtaining steady work. Joplin played pre-ragtime 'jig-piano' in various red-light districts throughout the mid-South.By the early 1890s, Ragtime had become popular among African-Americans in the cities of St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri
St. Louis is an independent city on the eastern border of Missouri, United States. With a population of 319,294, it was the 58th-largest U.S. city at the 2010 U.S. Census. The Greater St...
and Chicago. In 1893 large numbers of African-American musicians, including Joplin, made their way to Chicago to perform for the visitors at the World's Fair. They found work in the cafés, saloons and brothels that lined the fair and the city's seedy and corrupt "Tenderloin" district. While in Chicago, Joplin formed his first band and began arranging music for the group to perform. Although the World's Fair was "not congenial to African Americans," he still found that his music, as well as that of other black performers, was popular with visitors. The exposition was attended by 27 million Americans and had a profound effect on many areas of American cultural life, including ragtime. Although specific information is sparse, numerous sources have credited the Chicago World Fair with spreading the popularity of ragtime. By 1897 ragtime had become a national craze in American cities, and was described by the St. Louis Dispatch as "a veritable call of the wild, which mightily stirred the pulses of city bred people."
Life in Missouri
In 1894 Joplin arrived in Sedalia, MissouriSedalia, Missouri
Sedalia is a city located about south of the Missouri River in Pettis County, Missouri. U.S. Highway 50 and U.S. Highway 65 intersect in the city. As of 2006, the city had a total population of 20,669. It is the county seat of Pettis County. The Sedalia Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of...
. At first, Joplin stayed with the family of Arthur Marshall
Arthur Marshall (ragtime composer)
Arthur Marshall was an African-American composer and performer of ragtime music.Marshall was born on a farm in Saline County, Missouri, but a few years later his family moved to Sedalia, Missouri...
, at the time a 13-year old boy but later one of Joplin's students and a rag-time composer in his own right. There is no record of Joplin having a permanent residence in the town until 1904, as Joplin was making a living as a touring musician.
In the 1890s, the town had a population of approximately 14,000 and was the center of commerce and transport for the region. The town's saloons and brothels of the red-light district
Red-light district
A red-light district is a part of an urban area where there is a concentration of prostitution and sex-oriented businesses, such as sex shops, strip clubs, adult theaters, etc...
on Main Street, nicknamed "Battle Row", provided employment for musicians, and it is likely that Joplin worked in this area. The town was attractive for other reasons; race-relations
Discrimination in the United States
Discrimination, according to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, is the process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are responded to differently. This term is used to highlight the difference of treatment between members of different groups when one group is intentionally singled out and...
between Whites and Blacks in Sedalia were relatively good, especially when compared to other similar communities in Missouri in this period, there is no record of public lynchings in the area during the 1890s, there were several prominent black citizens who held minor positions in the Republican Party
Republican Party (United States)
The Republican Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Democratic Party. Founded by anti-slavery expansion activists in 1854, it is often called the GOP . The party's platform generally reflects American conservatism in the U.S...
, and the George R. Smith College
George R. Smith College
George R. Smith College, located in Sedalia, Missouri, was attended by the famed and prolific American ragtime-music piano composer Scott Joplin famous for the piano music piece "Maple Leaf Rag."...
, one of the nation's first colleges for the education of blacks, opened in 1894. In addition, Sedalia was described by a black resident of the town at the time as the "musical town of the West", because music was a major leisure-time activity.
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
and Texas. Two businessmen from New York published Joplin's first two works, the songs "Please Say You Will", and "A Picture of her Face" in 1895. Joplin's visit to Temple, Texas
Temple, Texas
Temple is a city in Bell County, Texas, United States. Located near the county seat of Belton, Temple lies in the region referred to as Central Texas. Located off Interstate 35, Temple is 65 miles north of Austin and 34 miles south of Waco. In the 2010 Census, Temple's population was 66,102, an...
enabled him to have three pieces published there in 1896, including the "Crush Collision March" which commemorated a planned train crash
Crush, Texas
Crush, Texas, was a temporary "city" established as a one-day publicity stunt in 1896. William George Crush, general passenger agent of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad , conceived the idea to demonstrate a train wreck as a spectacle. No admission was charged, and train fares to the crash site...
on the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad
Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad
The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was incorporated May 23, 1870. In its earliest days the MKT was commonly referred to as "the K-T", which was its stock exchange symbol; this common designation soon evolved into "the Katy"....
on September 15 which he may have witnessed. The March was described by one of Joplin's biographers as a "special... early essay in ragtime". While in Sedalia he was teaching piano to students who included Arthur Marshall, composer and pianist Brun Campbell
Brun Campbell
Brun Campbell was an American composer and pianist. Born Sanford Brunson Campbell in Oberlin, Kansas, he ran away to Oklahoma City when he was fifteen and met Scott Joplin. For the next decade, he made his living as a traveling pianist in the Midwestern and Southern United States...
, and Scott Hayden
Scott Hayden
Scott Hayden was an African-American composer of ragtime music.Born in Sedalia, Missouri, he was the son of Marion and Julia Hayden...
, all of whom became ragtime composers in their own right. In turn, Joplin enrolled at the George R. Smith College
George R. Smith College
George R. Smith College, located in Sedalia, Missouri, was attended by the famed and prolific American ragtime-music piano composer Scott Joplin famous for the piano music piece "Maple Leaf Rag."...
, where he apparently studied "advanced harmony and composition". The College records were destroyed in a fire in 1925, and biographer Edward A. Berlin notes that it was unlikely that a small college for African-Americans would be able to provide such a course.
In 1899, Joplin married Belle, the sister-in-law of collaborator Scott Hayden
Scott Hayden
Scott Hayden was an African-American composer of ragtime music.Born in Sedalia, Missouri, he was the son of Marion and Julia Hayden...
. Although there were hundreds of rags in print by the time of the "Maple Leaf Rag's" publication, Joplin was not far behind. His first published rag, "Original Rags
Original Rags
"Original Rags" was an early ragtime medley for piano.It was the first of Scott Joplin's rags to appear in print, in early 1899, preceding his "Maple Leaf Rag" by half a year.- Publication history :...
" (March 1899), had been completed in 1897, the same year as the first ragtime work in print, the "Mississippi Rag" by William Krell
William Krell
William Henry Krell composed what is regarded as the first rag or ragtime composition in 1897 called Mississippi Rag, published in New York by S. Brainard's Sons and copyrighted on January 27, 1897...
. The "Maple Leaf Rag" was likely to have been known in Sedalia before its publication in 1899; Brun Campbell claimed to have seen the manuscript of the work in around 1898. The exact circumstances which led to the Maple Leaf Rag's publication are unknown, and there are a number of different versions of the event which contradict each other. After several unsuccessful approaches to publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stillwell Stark
John Stillwell Stark
John Stillwell Stark was a United States publisher of ragtime music. He is best known for publishing and promoting the music of Scott Joplin....
, a retailer of musical instruments who later became his most important publisher, on 10 August 1899 for a 1% royalty on all sales of the rag, with a minimum sales price of 25 cents. It is possible that the rag was named after the Maple Leaf Club, although there is no direct evidence to prove the link, and there were many other possible sources for the name in and around Sedalia at the time.
Rudi Blesh
Rudi Blesh was an American jazz critic and enthusiast....
wrote that during its first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, and became "the first great instrumental sheet music hit in America". However, research by Joplin's later biographer Edward A. Berlin demonstrated that this was not the case; the initial print-run of 400 took one year to sell, and under the terms of Joplin's contract with a 1% royalty would have given Joplin an income of $4 (or approximately $ at current prices). Later sales were steady and would have given Joplin an income which would have covered his expenses; in 1909 estimated sales would have given him an income of $600 annually (approximately $ in current prices).
The "Maple Leaf Rag" did serve as a model for the hundreds of rags to come from future composers, especially in the development of classic ragtime. After the publication of the "Maple Leaf Rag", Joplin was soon being described as "King of rag time writers", not least by himself on the covers of his own work, such as "The Easy Winners
The Easy Winners
"The Easy Winners" is a ragtime composition by Scott Joplin. One of his most popular works, it was one of the four that had been recorded as of 1940.-Musical structure:...
" and "Elite Syncopations".
After the Joplins' move to St. Louis in early 1900, they had a baby daughter who died only a few months after birth. Joplin's relationship with his wife was difficult as she had no interest in music; they eventually separated and then divorced. About this time, Joplin collaborated with Scott Hayden in the composition of four rags. It was in St. Louis that Joplin produced some of his best-known works, including "The Entertainer
The Entertainer (rag)
"The Entertainer" is sub-titled "A rag time two step", which was a form of dance popular until about 1911, and a style which was common among rags written at the time.Its structure is: Intro AA BB A CC Intro2 DD....
", "March Majestic", and the short theatrical work "The Ragtime Dance
The Ragtime Dance
"The Ragtime Dance" is a piece of ragtime music by Scott Joplin, first published in 1902.-Publication history:Although the piece was performed in Sedalia, Missouri on November 24, 1899, it wasn't published until 1902. John Stillwell Stark had announced the publication of "The Ragtime Dance" in...
".
In June 1904, Joplin married Freddie Alexander of Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock, Arkansas
Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...
, the young woman to whom he had dedicated "The Chrysanthemum" (1904). She died on September 10, 1904 of complications resulting from a cold, ten weeks after their wedding. Joplin's first work copyrighted after Freddie's death, "Bethena
Bethena
"Bethena, A Concert Waltz" is a composition by Scott Joplin. It was the first Joplin work since his wife Freddie's death on September 10, 1904 of pneumonia, ten weeks after their wedding. At the time the composer had significant financial problems; the work did not sell successfully at the time of...
" (1905), was described by one biographer as "an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of ragtime waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...
es".
During this time, Joplin created an opera company of 30 people and produced his first opera A Guest of Honor
A Guest of Honor
A Guest of Honor was the first opera created by Scott Joplin, the celebrated ragtime composer. The focus of the production was a 1901 White House dinner hosted by President Theodore Roosevelt for the civil rights leader and educator Booker T. Washington...
for a national tour. It is not certain how many productions were staged, or even if this was an all-black show or a racially mixed production (which would have been unusual for 1903). During the tour, either in Springfield, Illinois
Springfield, Illinois
Springfield is the third and current capital of the US state of Illinois and the county seat of Sangamon County with a population of 117,400 , making it the sixth most populated city in the state and the second most populated Illinois city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area...
, or Pittsburg, Kansas
Pittsburg, Kansas
Pittsburg is a city in Crawford County, in southeastern Kansas, United States. It is the most populous city in Crawford County and in southeastern Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 20,233.-History:...
, someone associated with the company stole the box office receipts. Joplin could not meet the company's payroll or pay for its lodgings at a theatrical boarding house. It is believed that the score for A Guest of Honor was lost and perhaps destroyed because of non-payment of the company's boarding house bill.
Later years
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, which he believed was the best place to find a producer for a new opera. After his move to New York, Joplin met Lottie Stokes, whom he married in 1909. In 1911, unable to find a publisher, Joplin undertook the financial burden of publishing Treemonisha
Treemonisha
Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...
himself in piano-vocal format. In 1915, as a last ditch effort to see it performed, he invited a small audience to hear it at a rehearsal hall in Harlem
Harlem
Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...
. Poorly staged and with only Joplin on piano accompaniment, it was "a miserable failure", the public being not yet ready for "crude" black musical forms, so different from the style of European grand opera of that time. The audience, including potential backers, was indifferent and walked out. Scott writes that "after a disastrous single performance ... Joplin suffered a breakdown. He was bankrupt, discouraged, and worn out." He concludes that few American artists of his generation faced such obstacles: "Treemonisha went unnoticed and unreviewed, largely because Joplin had abandoned commercial music in favor of art music, a field closed to African Americans." In fact, it was not until the 1970s that the opera received a full theatrical staging.
In 1914, Joplin and Lottie self-published his "Magnetic Rag
Magnetic Rag
"Magnetic Rag" is a ragtime composition for piano by Scott Joplin. It is significant for being the last rag which Joplin published in his lifetime, three years before his death in 1917...
" using the name the "Scott Joplin Music Company" which had been formed the previous December. Biographer Vera Brodsky Lawrence speculates that Joplin was aware of his advancing deterioration due to syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
and was "consciously racing against time." In her sleeve notes on the 1992 Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
release of Treemonisha
Treemonisha
Treemonisha is an opera composed by the famed African-American ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Though it encompasses a wide range of musical styles other than ragtime, and Joplin did not refer to it as such, it is sometimes incorrectly referred to as a "ragtime opera"...
she notes that he "plunged feverishly into the task of orchestrating his opera, day and night, with his friend Sam Patterson standing by to copy out the parts, page by page, as each page of the full score was completed."
Death
By 1916, Joplin was suffering from tertiary syphilis and a resulting descent into madness. In January 1917, he was admitted to Manhattan State Hospital, a mental institution. He died there on April 1, 1917 of dementiaDementia
Dementia is a serious loss of cognitive ability in a previously unimpaired person, beyond what might be expected from normal aging...
. After Joplin's death at the age of just 49, from advanced syphilis, he was buried in a pauper's grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally honored in 1974.
Works
The combination of classical music, the musical atmosphere present around Texarkana (including work songs, gospel hymns, spirituals and dance music) and Joplin's natural ability has been cited as contributing significantly to the invention of a new style which blended both African-American musical styles with European forms and melodies, and which first became celebrated in the 1890s: ragtimeRagtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
.
When Joplin was learning the piano, serious musical circles condemned ragtime because of its association with the vulgar and inane songs "cranked out by the tune-smiths of Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
." As a composer Joplin refined ragtime, elevating it above the low and unrefined form played by the "wandering honky-tonk pianists... playing mere dance music" of popular imagination. This new art form, the classic rag
Classic Rag
Classic Rag is a term used to describe the style of ragtime composition pioneered by Scott Joplin and the Missouri school of ragtime composers...
, combined Afro-American folk music's syncopation
Syncopation
In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...
and nineteenth-century European romanticism
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
, with its harmonic schemes and its march-like tempos. In the words of one critic, "ragtime was basically... an Afro-American version of the polka, or its analog, the Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....
-style march." With this as a foundation, Joplin intended his compositions to be played exactly as he wrote them – without improvisation. Joplin wrote his rags as "classical" music in miniature form in order to raise ragtime above its "cheap bordello" origins and produced work which opera historian Elise Kirk described as "...more tuneful, contrapuntal, infectious, and harmonically colorful than any others of his era."
It has been speculated that Joplin's achievements were influenced by his classically trained German music teacher Julius Weiss
Julius Weiss
Julius Weiss was a German music professor, best known for being Scott Joplin's "first piano teacher." He is credited with inspiring and influencing Joplin, considered "the king of ragtime," during his early years. He taught Joplin music and other subjects for a number of years, beginning when...
, who may have brought a polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
rhythmic sensibility from the old country to the 11-year old Joplin. As Curtis put it "The educated German could open up the door to a world of learning and music of which young Joplin was largely unaware."
Joplin's first, and most significant hit, the "Maple Leaf Rag", was described as the "archetype" of the classic rag, influencing subsequent rag composers for at least 12 years after its initial publication thanks to its rhythmic patterns, melody lines, and harmony, although with the exception of Joseph Lamb
Joseph Lamb
Joseph Francis Lamb was a noted American composer of ragtime music. Lamb, of Irish descent, was the only non-African American of the "Big Three" composers of classical ragtime, the other two being Scott Joplin and James Scott.-Life and Career:Lamb was born in Montclair, New Jersey...
they generally failed to enlarge upon it.
Treemonisha
The opera's setting is a former slave community in an isolated forest near Joplin's childhood town Texarkana in September 1884. The plot centers on an 18 year old woman Treemonisha who is taught to read by a white woman, and then leads her community against the influence of conjurers who prey on ignorance and superstition. Treemonisha is abducted and is about to be thrown into a wasps' nest when her friend Remus rescues her. The community realizes the value of education and the liability of their ignorance before choosing her as their teacher and leader.
Joplin wrote both the score and the libretto for the opera, which largely follows the form of European opera with many conventional arias, ensembles and choruses. In addition the themes of superstition and mysticism which are evident in Treemonisha are common in the operatic tradition, and certain aspects of the plot echo devices in the work of the German composer Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
(of which Joplin was aware); a sacred tree under which Treemonisha is found recalls the tree from which Siegmund takes his enchanted sword in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
, and the retelling of the heroine's origins echos aspects of the opera Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...
. In addition, African-American folk tales also influence the story, with the wasp nest incident being similar to the story of Br'er Rabbit
Br'er Rabbit
Br'er Rabbit is a central figure in the Uncle Remus stories of the Southern United States. He is a trickster character who succeeds by his wits rather than by brawn, tweaking authority figures and bending social mores as he sees fit...
and the briar patch.
Treemonisha is not a ragtime opera because Joplin employed the styles of ragtime and other black music sparingly, using them to convey "racial character", and to celebrate the music of his childhood at the end of the 19th century. The opera has been seen as a valuable record of rural black music from 1870s–1890s re-created by a "skilled and sensitive participant".
Berlin speculates about parallels between the plot and Joplin's own life. He notes that Lottie Joplin (the composer's third wife) saw a connection between the character Treemonisha's wish to lead her people out of ignorance, and a similar desire in the composer. In addition, it has been speculated that Treemonisha represents Freddie, Joplin's second wife, because the date of the opera's setting was likely to have been the month of her birth.
At the time of the opera's publication in 1911, the American Musician and Art Journal praised it as "an entirely new form of operatic art". Later critics have also praised the opera as occupying a special place in American history, with its heroine "a startlingly early voice for modern civil rights causes, notably the importance of education and knowledge to African American advancement." Curtis's conclusion is similar: "In the end, Treemonisha offered a celebration of literacy, learning, hard work, and community solidarity as the best formula for advancing the race." Berlin describes it as a "fine opera, certainly more interesting than most operas then being written in the United States", but later states that Joplin's own libretto showed the composer "was not a competent dramatist" with the book not up to the same quality as the music.
Performance skills
Joplin's skills as a pianist were described in glowing terms by a SedaliaSedalia, Missouri
Sedalia is a city located about south of the Missouri River in Pettis County, Missouri. U.S. Highway 50 and U.S. Highway 65 intersect in the city. As of 2006, the city had a total population of 20,669. It is the county seat of Pettis County. The Sedalia Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of...
newspaper in 1898, and fellow ragtime composers Arthur Marshall
Arthur Marshall (ragtime composer)
Arthur Marshall was an African-American composer and performer of ragtime music.Marshall was born on a farm in Saline County, Missouri, but a few years later his family moved to Sedalia, Missouri...
and Joe Jordan
Joe Jordan (musician)
Joe Jordan was an African American musician and composer. Jordan was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, grew up in St...
both said that he played the instrument well. However, the son of publisher John Stark stated that Joplin was a rather mediocre pianist and that he composed on paper, rather than at the piano. Artie Matthews
Artie Matthews
Artie Matthews was a songwriter, pianist, and ragtime composer.Artie Matthews was born in Braidwood, Illinois; his family moved to Springfield, Illinois in his youth. He learned to play piano, mostly popular songs and light classics, until he heard ragtime played by a pianist named Banty Morgan...
recalled the "delight" the St. Louis players took in outplaying Joplin.
While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano roll
Piano roll
A piano roll is a music storage medium used to operate a player piano, piano player or reproducing piano. A piano roll is a continuous roll of paper with perforations punched into it. The peforations represent note control data...
s for use in mechanical player piano
Player piano
A player piano is a self-playing piano, containing a pneumatic or electro-mechanical mechanism that operates the piano action via pre-programmed music perforated paper, or in rare instances, metallic rolls. The rise of the player piano grew with the rise of the mass-produced piano for the home in...
s. All seven were made in 1916. Of these, the six released under the Connorized label show evidence of significant editing, probably by William Axtmann, the staff arranger at Connorized. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin reached St. Louis he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis
Syphilis
Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the spirochete bacterium Treponema pallidum subspecies pallidum. The primary route of transmission is through sexual contact; however, it may also be transmitted from mother to fetus during pregnancy or at birth, resulting in congenital syphilis...
, the disease that took his life in 1917. The second roll recording of "Maple Leaf Rag" on the UniRecord label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "... shocking... disorganized and completely distressing to hear." While there is disagreement among piano-roll experts about the accuracy of the reproduction of a player's performance, Berlin notes that the "Maple Leaf Rag" roll was "painfully bad" and likely to be the truest record of Joplin's playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life.
Legacy
Joplin and his fellow ragtime composers rejuvenated American popular music, fostering an appreciation for African American music among European Americans by creating exhilarating and liberating dance tunes, changing American musical taste. "Its syncopation and rhythmic drive gave it a vitality and freshness attractive to young urban audiences indifferent to Victorian proprieties... Joplin's ragtime expressed the intensity and energy of a modern urban America."Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
, a leading Joplin recording artist, wrote that "a pervasive sense of lyricism infuses his work, and even at his most high-spirited, he cannot repress a hint of melancholy or adversity... He had little in common with the fast and flashy school of ragtime that grew up after him." Joplin historian Bill Ryerson adds that "In the hands of authentic practitioners like Joplin, ragtime was a disciplined form capable of astonishing variety and subtlety... Joplin did for the rag what Chopin did for the mazurka
Mazurka
The mazurka is a Polish folk dance in triple meter, usually at a lively tempo, and with accent on the third or second beat.-History:The folk origins of the mazurek are two other Polish musical forms—the slow machine...
. His style ranged from tones of torment to stunning serenades that incorporated the bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
and the tango."
Joplin biographer Susan Curtis expands on those observations:
- "When Scott Joplin syncopated his way into the hearts of millions of Americans at the turn of the century, he helped revolutionize American music and culture. His ragged rhythms and lilting melodies made people want to tap their feet, slap their thighs, or dance with happy abandon. As Americans embraced his music, they participated in a dramatic transformation of American popular culture – their Victorian restraintVictorian moralityVictorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of people living at the time of Queen Victoria's reign and of the moral climate of the United Kingdom throughout the 19th century in general, which contrasted greatly with the morality of the previous Georgian period...
gave way to modern exuberance. And whether in the elegant parlors of comfortable, respectable American homes or in the honky tonks and cafes of America's sporting districts, ragtime music accompanied a reorientation of cultural values in America in the twentieth century. The excellence and appeal of his compositions earned for Joplin the generally accepted title "King of Ragtime".
Composer and actor Max Morath
Max Morath
Max Morath is an American ragtime pianist, composer, actor and author. He is best known for his piano playing, and is referred to as "Mr. Ragtime". He has been a devoted and prolific performer, writing several plays and productions, as well as being variously a recording artist, actor and radio...
found it striking that the vast majority of Joplin's work did not enjoy the popularity of the "Maple Leaf Rag", because while the compositions were "of increasing lyrical beauty and delicate syncopation" they remained "obscure" and "unheralded" during his lifetime. Joplin apparently realized that his music was ahead of its time: As music historian Ian Whitcomb mentions that Joplin "opined that 'Maple Leaf Rag' would make him 'King of Ragtime Composers' but he also knew that he would not be a pop hero in his own lifetime. 'When I'm dead twenty-five years, people are going to recognize me,' he told a friend." Just over thirty years later he was recognized, and later historian Rudi Blesh would write a large book about ragtime, which he dedicated to the memory of Joplin.
Although he was penniless and disappointed at the end of his life, Joplin set the standard for ragtime compositions and played a key role in the development of ragtime music. And as a pioneer composer and performer, he helped pave the way for young black artists to reach American audiences of both races. After his death, jazz historian Floyd Levin noted: "those few who realized his greatness bowed their heads in sorrow. This was the passing of the king of all ragtime writers, the man who gave America a genuine native music."
Revival
After his death in 1917, Joplin's music and ragtime in general waned in popularity as new forms of musical styles, such as jazzJazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and novelty piano
Novelty piano
Novelty Piano is a genre of piano music that was popular during the 1920s.A successor to ragtime and an outgrowth of the piano roll music of the teens, novelty piano can be considered a pianistic cousin of jazz, which appeared around the same time....
, emerged. Even so, jazz bands and recording artists such as Tommy Dorsey
Tommy Dorsey
Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...
in 1936, Jelly Roll Morton
Jelly Roll Morton
Ferdinand Joseph LaMothe , known professionally as Jelly Roll Morton, was an American ragtime and early jazz pianist, bandleader and composer....
in 1939 and J. Russell Robinson
J. Russell Robinson
Joseph Russel Robinson was a United States ragtime and dixieland jazz pianist and a composer of jazz, blues, and popular tunes....
in 1947 released recordings of Joplin compositions. "Maple Leaf Rag" was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records.
In the 1960s, a small-scale reawakening of interest in classic ragtime was underway among some American music scholars such as Trebor Tichenor, William Bolcom
William Bolcom
William Elden Bolcom is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, the Detroit Music Award and was named 2007 Composer of the Year by Musical America. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973–2008...
, William Albright
William Albright (musician)
William Albright was an American composer, pianist and organist.Albright was born in Gary, Indiana, and began learning the piano at the age of five, and attended the Juilliard Preparatory Department , the Eastman School of Music and the University of Michigan , where he studied composition with...
and Rudi Blesh
Rudi Blesh
Rudi Blesh was an American jazz critic and enthusiast....
. In 1968, Bolcom and Albright interested Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin
Joshua Rifkin is an American conductor, keyboard player, and musicologist. He is best known by the general public for having played a central role in the ragtime revival in the 1970s with the three albums he recorded of Scott Joplin's works for Nonesuch Records, and to classical musicians for his...
, a young musicologist, in the body of Joplin's work. Together, they hosted an occasional ragtime-and-early-jazz evening on WBAI
WBAI
WBAI, a part of the Pacifica Radio Network, is a non-commercial, listener-supported radio station, broadcasting at 99.5 FM in New York City.Its programming is leftist/progressive, and a mixture of political news and opinion from a leftist perspective, tinged with aspects of its complex and varied...
radio.
In November 1970, Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
Scott Joplin: Piano Rags
Scott Joplin: Piano Rags is a 1970 ragtime piano album, consisting of compositions by Scott Joplin played by Joshua Rifkin, on the Nonesuch Records label. The album cover states the name as Piano Rags by Scott Joplin. The record is considered to have been the first to reintroduce the music of...
on the classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
label Nonesuch
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for September 28, 1974 has the record at number 5, with the follow-up "Volume 2" at number 4, and a combined set of both volumes at number 3. Separately both volumes had been on the chart for 64 weeks. In the top 7 spots on that chart, 6 of the entries were recordings of Joplin's work, three of which were Rifkin's. Record stores found themselves for the first time putting ragtime in the classical music section. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
categories: Best Album Notes
Grammy Award for Best Album Notes
The Grammy Award for Best Album Notes has been presented since 1964. From 1973 to 1976, a separate award was presented for Best Album Notes - Classical. Those awards are listed under those years below. The award recognizes albums with excellent liner notes...
and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
The Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance was awarded from 1959 to 2011. From 1967 to 1971 and in 1987 the award was combined with the award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance and awarded as the Grammy Award for Best Classical Performance - Instrumental Soloist or...
. Rifkin was also under consideration for a third Grammy for a recording not related to Joplin, but at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. He did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Television and a sell-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall
Royal Festival Hall
The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,900-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge. It is a Grade I listed building - the first post-war building to become so protected...
. In 1979 Alan Rich
Alan Rich
Alan Rich was an American music critic who served on the staff of many newspapers and magazines on both coasts. Originally from Brookline, Massachusetts, he first studied medicine at Harvard University before turning to music...
in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disk Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records
Nonesuch Records is an American record label, owned by Warner Music Group and distributed by Warner Bros. Records.-Company history:Nonesuch was founded in 1964 by Jac Holzman to produce "fine records at the same price as a trade paperback", which would be half the price of a normal LP...
"created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival."
In January 1971, Harold C. Schonberg
Harold C. Schonberg
Harold Charles Schonberg was an American music critic and journalist, most notably for The New York Times. He was the first music critic to win the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism...
, music critic at the New York Times, having just heard the Rifkin album, wrote a featured Sunday edition article entitled "Scholars, Get Busy on Scott Joplin!" Schonberg's call to action has been described as the catalyst for classical music scholars, the sort of people Joplin had battled all his life, to conclude that Joplin was a genius. Vera Brodsky Lawrence of the New York Public Library
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
published a two-volume set of Joplin works in June 1971, entitled The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, stimulating a wider interest in the performance of Joplin's music that included a recording called Joplin: The Red Back Book by Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller is an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian, and jazz musician.- Biography and works :...
, a french horn player and music professor.
Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Hamlisch
Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...
lightly adapted Joplin's music for the 1973 film The Sting
The Sting
The Sting is a 1973 American caper film set in September 1936 that involves a complicated plot by two professional grifters to con a mob boss . The film was directed by George Roy Hill, who previously directed Newman and Redford in the western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Created by...
, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score and Adaptation on April 2, 1974. His version of "The Entertainer" reached number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
and the American Top 40
American Top 40
American Top 40 is an internationally syndicated, independent radio program created by Casey Kasem, Don Bustany, Tom Rounds and Ron Jacobs. Originally a production of Watermark Inc...
music chart on May 18, 1974, prompting The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
to write, "the whole nation has begun to take notice". Thanks to the film and its score, Joplin's work became appreciated in both the popular and classical music world, becoming (in the words of music magazine Record World
Record World
Record World magazine was one of the three main music industry trade publications in the United States, along with Billboard and Cash Box magazines. It was founded in 1946 under the name Music Vendor, but since 1964 changed it to Record World, under the ownership of Sid Parnes and Bob Austin, both...
), the "classical phenomenon of the decade".
On October 22, 1971, excerpts from Treemonisha were presented in concert form at Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of New York City's Upper West Side. Reynold Levy has been its president since 2002.-History and facilities:...
with musical performances by Bolcom, Rifkin and Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. Williams wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements, and recorded more than one hundred records...
supporting a group of singers. Finally, on January 28, 1972, T.J. Anderson's orchestration of Treemonisha was staged for two consecutive nights, sponsored by the Afro-American Music Workshop of Morehouse College
Morehouse College
Morehouse College is a private, all-male, liberal arts, historically black college located in Atlanta, Georgia. Along with Hampden-Sydney College and Wabash College, Morehouse is one of three remaining traditional men's colleges in the United States....
in Atlanta, with singers accompanied by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Robert Spano has been its music director since 2001...
under the direction of Robert Shaw
Robert Shaw (conductor)
Robert Shaw was an American conductor most famous for his work with his namesake Chorale, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus, and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Shaw received 14 Grammy awards, four ASCAP awards for service to contemporary music, the first Guggenheim Fellowship...
, and choreography by Katherine Dunham
Katherine Dunham
Katherine Mary Dunham was an American dancer, choreographer, songwriter, author, educator, and activist...
. Schonberg remarked in February 1972 that the "Scott Joplin Renaissance" was in full swing and still growing. In May 1975, Treemonisha was staged in a full opera production by the Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera
Houston Grand Opera Houston Grand Opera was founded in 1955 through the joint efforts of Maestro Walter Herbert and cultural leaders Mrs. Louis G. Lobit, Edward Bing and Charles Cockrell...
. The company toured briefly, then settled into an eight-week run in New York on Broadway at the Palace Theater in October and November. This appearance was directed by Gunther Schuller, and soprano Carmen Balthrop alternated with Kathleen Battle
Kathleen Battle
Kathleen Battle , is an African-American operatic soprano known for her agile and light voice and her silvery, pure tone. Battle initially became known for her work within the concert repertoire through performances with major orchestras during the early and mid 1970s. She made her opera debut in...
as the title character. An "original Broadway cast" recording was produced. Because of the lack of national exposure given to the brief Morehouse College staging of the opera in 1972, many Joplin scholars wrote that the Houston Grand Opera's 1975 show was the first full production.
1974 saw the Royal Ballet, under director Kenneth MacMillan
Kenneth MacMillan
Sir Kenneth MacMillan was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. He was artistic director of the Royal Ballet in London between 1970 and 1977.-Early years:...
, create Elite Syncopations a ballet based on tunes by Joplin and other composers of the era. That year also brought the premiere by the Los Angeles Ballet of Red Back Book, choreographed by John Clifford
John Clifford (choreographer)
John Clifford, is best known as the creator of “Casablanca, The Dance,” produced by Warner Bros. Theatre Ventures, Inc. and his Los Angeles Dance Theater, and founder / artistic director of the original Los Angeles Ballet , and the chamber sized touring ensemble, Ballet of Los Angeles...
to Joplin rags from the collection of the same name, including both solo piano performances and arrangements for full orchestra.
Other awards and recognition
1970: Joplin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of FameSongwriters Hall of Fame
The Songwriters Hall of Fame is an arm of the National Academy of Popular Music. It was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and music publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond. The goal is to create a museum but as of April, 2008, the means do not yet exist and so instead it is an online...
by the National Academy of Popular Music
National Academy of Popular Music
The National Academy of Popular Music is an American organization which administers the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and sponsors a series of workshops and showcases for the songwriting profession. It was formed in 1988 by Sammy Cahn and Bob Leone....
.
1976: Joplin was awarded a posthumous Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
for his special contribution to American music.
1977: Motown Productions produced Scott Joplin, a biographical film
Biographical film
A biographical film, or biopic , is a film that dramatizes the life of an actual person or people. They differ from films “based on a true story” or “historical films” in that they attempt to comprehensively tell a person’s life story or at least the most historically important years of their...
starring Billy Dee Williams
Billy Dee Williams
William December "Billy Dee" Williams, Jr. is an American actor, artist, singer, and writer.-Early life:Williams was born in New York City, New York, the son of Loretta...
as Joplin, released by Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
.
1983: the United States Postal Service
United States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
issued a stamp of the composer as part of its Black Heritage commemorative series.
1989: Joplin received a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame
St. Louis Walk of Fame
The St. Louis Walk of Fame honors well-known people from St. Louis, Missouri, who made contributions to culture of the United States. All inductees were either born in the Greater St. Louis area or spent their formative or creative years there...
.
2002: a collection of Joplin's own performances recorded on piano rolls in the 1900s was included by the National Recording Preservation Board
National Recording Preservation Board
The United States National Recording Preservation Board selects recorded sounds for preservation in the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry. The National Recording Registry was initiated to maintain and preserve "sound recordings that are culturally, historically or aesthetically...
in the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
National Recording Registry. The board annually selects songs that are "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
External links
- Texas State Historical Association – Biography of Scott Joplin
- The Scott Joplin International Ragtime Foundation
- Joplin at St. Louis Walk of Fame
- "Perfessor" Bill Edwards plays Joplin, with anecdotes and research.
- Maple Leaf Rag A site dedicated to 100 years of the Maple Leaf Rag.
- The Scott Joplin House – St. Louis, Missouri
Recordings and sheet music
- Free recordings of Joplin's music in Mp3 format by various pianists at PianoSociety.com
- www.kreusch-sheet-music.net – Free Scores by Joplin
- Sheet Music and Covers (includes cover art, comprehensive sheet music selection, and biography)
- Kunst der Fuge: Scott Joplin – MIDI files (live and piano-rolls recordings)
- John Roache's site has MIDI performances of ragtime music by Joplin and others