Maple Leaf Rag

Maple Leaf Rag
First edition cover of "Maple Leaf Rag".

The "Maple Leaf Rag" (copyright registered 18 September 1899)[1] 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.[2] As a result Joplin was called the "King of Ragtime". The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life.

Despite ragtime's decline after the death of Joplin in 1917 and the end of World War One, the Maple Leaf Rag continued to be recorded by well-known artists. The Ragtime revival of the 1970s brought it back to mainstream public notice.

Contents

Background

In 1894 Scott Joplin arrived in Sedalia, Missouri. 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.[3] There is no record of Joplin's having a permanent residence in the town until 1904, as Joplin was making a living as a touring musician. Joplin is likely to have first lived in Sedalia as a teenager before moving to St. Louis, so he would have known the town, which in the 1890s had a population of approximately 14,000 and was the center of commerce and transport for the region.[4][5]

The town's saloons and brothels of the red-light district on Main St, 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, a college for the education of blacks, opened in 1894.[5][6]. 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 were musical events mentioned in newspapers throughout the town almost every day with a wide variety of acts including military and minstrel bands, dances and balls, orchestral or solo piano performance, comic opera or operetta.[7]

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". Also, 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.[8] 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 15 September. 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 [9], 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.[10]

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 was "Original Rags" (March 1899) which 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.[11] The exact circumstances which led to the "Maple Leaf Rag"'s publication are unknown, and there are various different versions of the event which contradict each other. After several unsuccessful aproaches 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 25c. The "Maple Leaf Rag" was published between 10 August and 20 September when the Copyright Office received two copies of the score.[12] 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. [13]

Even prior to publication, Joplin was anticipating success with the piece—he told Arthur Marshall, "Arthur, the Maple Leaf will make me the King of Ragtime Composers".[14][15] The Rag was reissued in 1900 or 1901 with a new cover showing a green maple leaf and a photograph of Joplin.[16] In 1903 Stark issued a "Maple Leaf Rag Song", an arrangement of Joplin's music with words by Sydney Brown.[17]

Structure

AA BB A CC DD

"Maple Leaf Rag" is a multi-strain ragtime march with athletic bass lines and upbeat melodies. Each of the four parts features a recurring theme and a striding bass line with copious seventh chords. The piece may be considered the 'archetypal rag' due to its influence on the genre; its structure was the basis for many other famous rags, including 'Sensation' by Joseph Lamb.

"Maple Leaf Rag" seventh chord resolution[18] About this sound Play . Note that the seventh resolves down by half step.

It is more carefully constructed than almost all the previous rags, and the syncopations, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time.

Generally, the piece is not considered difficult, however; one must have very good coordination in the left hand to perform the piece successfully, particularly for the Trio, which involves leaps of two octaves. The piece was featured on the Trinity Guildhall Grade 8 syllabus. When it was first published, it was considered significantly more difficult than the average Tin Pan Alley and early ragtime sheet music common at the time.

The "Gladiolus Rag", a later composition by Joplin, is a developed variant of the Maple Leaf Rag, showcasing Joplin's increasing musical sophistication, and is usually played at a somewhat slower tempo. In addition, the first part of Joplin's "The Cascades" is very close to "Maple Leaf Rag"'s first theme.

Popularity and legacy

There have been many claims about the sales of the "Maple Leaf Rag", for example that 1 million copies of the sheet music were sold in the composer's lifetime, making Scott Joplin the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music.[2][22] 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".[22] 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 $105  in current value). 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 $14,618  in current prices).[12]

In addition to sales of sheet music, it was also popular in orchestrations for dance bands and brass bands for years. Joplin failed to relive the success of Maple Leaf Rag, with none of his other famous rags (such as The Entertainer) garnering as much popularity as the Maple Leaf Rag did. The royalties earned by the sheet music sales did provide Joplin with a steady income for the rest of his life, however. Soon after the "Maple Leaf Rag's" publication the earliest recordings of the rag took place; band leader Wilbur Sweatman recorded it onto Phonograph cylinder a year later, but there are no known copies which have survived.[17][20][21]. The first surviving record of the rag comes from the second known recording of the rag by the United States Military Band from 1906.[19]

While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano rolls for use in mechanical player pianos. All seven were made in 1916. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin made these recordings 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.[23] The recording of "Maple Leaf Rag", on the Aeolian Uni-Record label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "... shocking... disorganized and completely distressing to hear."[24] 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.[25]

The tune continued to be in the repertoire of jazz bands decades later, with artists such as the New Orleans Rhythm Kings in the 1920s, and Sidney Bechet in the 1930s giving it up-to-date adaptations, maintaining a timeless quality to it. As an indication of its persistent popularity and recognition, it was performed on phonograph records six times in each of the three decades after its first publication.[26] In 1930, it was featured in the gangster movie classic, The Public Enemy. "Maple Leaf Rag" was the Joplin piece found most often on 78 rpm records.[19]

In November 1970, Joshua Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags[27] on the classical label Nonesuch, which featured as its first track the "Maple Leaf Rag". It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record.[28] The Billboard "Best-Selling Classical LPs" chart for 28 September 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.[29] The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories: Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra), but at the ceremony on 14 March 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category.[30]. 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."[31]

The "Maple Leaf Rag" is still a favorite of ragtime pianists, and has been described as an "American institution... still in print and still popular".[22] As the copyright has expired, the composition is in the public domain. It appears in the soundtracks of hundreds of films, cartoons, commercials, and video games. In 2004 Canadian radio listeners voted it the 39th greatest song of all time.[32]

See also

References

  1. ^ Jasen & Tichenor 1978, p. 87.
  2. ^ a b Edwards 2008.
  3. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 24 & 25.
  4. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 8 & 9.
  5. ^ a b Berlin 1994, p. 14.
  6. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 18.
  7. ^ Berlin, p. 13 & 18.
  8. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 25-27.
  9. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 19.
  10. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 31-34.
  11. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 47 & 52.
  12. ^ a b Berlin 1994, p. 56 & 58.
  13. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 62.
  14. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 52.
  15. ^ Blesh & Janis 1971, p. 33.
  16. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 59.
  17. ^ a b c Berlin 1994, p. 131 & 132.
  18. ^ Benward & Saker 2003, p. 203.
  19. ^ a b c Jasen 1981, p. 319 - 320.
  20. ^ a b Edwards 2010.
  21. ^ a b RedHotJazz.
  22. ^ a b c Blesh 1981, p. xxiii.
  23. ^ Berlin (1996) pp. 237 & 239.
  24. ^ Blesh 1981, p. xxxix.
  25. ^ Berlin 1994, p. 237.
  26. ^ Berlin 1994.
  27. ^ "Scott Joplin Piano Rags Nonesuch Records CD (w/bonus tracks)". http://nonesuch.com/albums/piano-rags. Retrieved 2009-03-19. 
  28. ^ "Nonesuch Records". http://nonesuch.com/about. Retrieved 2009-03-19. 
  29. ^ Billboard magazine 1974, p. 61.
  30. ^ LA Times.
  31. ^ Rich 1979.
  32. ^ CBC Radio 2004.

Sources

External links


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