Composers › Scott Joplin
Scott Joplin
The “King of Ragtime”: he brought together African-American rhythm and the form of classical music.
Life
He was born in Texas around 1868, into an African-American family (his father had been enslaved), and learned the piano as a boy. He travelled the United States as a pianist and settled in Sedalia, Missouri.
In 1899 the publisher John Stark printed the Maple Leaf Rag, which became one of the biggest sheet-music hits of its time and made him famous across the country. The Entertainer followed in 1902.
He moved to New York and spent his last years on Treemonisha, an opera he never saw properly staged. He died in 1917, when ragtime was already going out of fashion.
Portrait: unknown author (1912), public domain, from Wikimedia Commons.
Curiosities
- In the 1970s his music became hugely popular again thanks to the film The Sting (1973), which uses The Entertainer as its theme.
- In 1976 he was awarded, after his death, a special Pulitzer Prize for his contribution to American music.
- On his scores he wrote that it is never right to play ragtime fast.
At the piano
- The left hand jumps between bass and chord like clockwork: it must be perfectly steady.
- The right hand is syncopated, with off-beat accents: count them carefully, slowly at first.
- Don't rush: as Joplin said, ragtime should be played calmly.
Pieces to learn 2 pieces
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