Scott Joplin (c.1867-1917) is profiled at AfriClassical.com, which features a Bibliography and comprehensive Works List by Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma, http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com.
April 16, 2016
Scott Joplin was an early musician who transformed much of
the landscape of popular music in the early 1900s. Though many details
of his short life are uncertain, his impact on early American music is
undeniable.
Joplin was born just after the Civil War in 1867 or 1868
possibly in East Texas, though even his place of birth is not entirely
certain. His parents had been slaves. When he was young, the family
moved to nearby Texarkana where his father worked on the railroad that
effectively created the city. As a child, he learned piano and classical
music from a variety of tutors in Texarkana.
In 1885, he left home, travelling across the country and
playing piano in bars and houses of ill repute or anywhere he could find
work. Joplin also attended college briefly to further study music
theory and composition. Between 1895 and 1917, he published more than 80
songs, including classical music, operas, and a new form of popular
music, ragtime.
Ragtime was known for its upbeat tempo, often played on
piano or accompanied by fiddles, banjos, or trumpets. Joplin tied this
new music in with classical musical theory with far less improvisation
and turned it into an art form. By the mid-1890s, he was touring with
his own group, the Texas Medley Quartet. His band performed at the 1893
Chicago World’s Fair to wide acclaim. Music historians believe his
performances started a ragtime craze in the country. In 1899, the Maple
Leaf Rag, was published and became the most popular sheet music sold
that year.
He moved to St. Louis in 1900 with his new wife, where he
concentrated on teaching and composing. However, a string of tragedies
began to unravel his life. An infant daughter died not long after his
arrival in St. Louis, and he and his wife divorced. One of his operas,
The Guest of Honor (1903), was a failure. His second marriage to Freddie
Alexander of Little Rock ended when she just ten weeks after their 1904
wedding.
Joplin moved to New York in 1907 and remarried. In 1910, he
completed his next opera. Treemonisha was set in Rondo, just east of
Texarkana, in the 1880s. In the story, a young woman on a plantation
learns to read and write and discovers that education is a defense
against fear and superstition that crippled her community. Crushed by
poor reception of his opera, bankrupt, and his physical health
collapsing, he had a nervous breakdown and was committed to a hospital
in early 1917. He died three months later, not yet fifty years old.
After Joplin’s passing, his influence only grew. Many
musicians continued to imitate his style, and ragtime music remained
extremely popular, ultimately inspiring the genre of jazz by the 1920s
and the big band music of the 1930s and 1940s.
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