Maybe he wasn’t a Joplin or Chauvin, but he was one of the best players for sure. The first African-American composer to publish a rag (“The Harlem Rag”), Turpin was undeniably good. Though he died with only three publications and no recordings, other musicians eagerly served as witnesses to the pianist’s great talent. Chauvin moved to Chicago, and he died at 27 a few years later his cause of death is listed as multiple sclerosis, but it was probably syphilis or sickle-cell anemia, compounded by his lifestyle. “Chauv was so far ahead with his modern stuff, he would be up-to-date now,” remembered his best friend, Sam Patterson, in the 1950 book They All Played Ragtime. The next day, he’d do the same thing, never bothering to name that one, either. He was rumored to be as good, or maybe even better than Joplin he’d warm up at the keys with a John Philip Sousa march, then let loose with rich, complex composition without a name, playing it off the top of his head. He loved nice suits, whiskey, ladies, and in his last years, opium. If Joplin was the sober, introverted idealist, Chauvin was a rowdy Taoist, playing for the fun of it and for the money. Though jazz ultimately broke with ragtime and went in a contrary direction-improvisation-music critics cite that “Chopin-esque rag” as a hint of where it might’ve gone, had Joplin lived longer. In 1914, dying of syphilis, Joplin wrote the melancholic “Magnetic Rag,” which attempted to combine classical and ragtime. Washington’s 1901 visit to President Theodore Roosevelt’s White House, now lost. He wrote two: Treemonisha and A Guest of Honor, about Booker T. Though rags are what he’s known for, Joplin wanted to compose lyric operas. Weiss trained him to read music and exposed him to polkas, old-world folk, and classical music, in addition to the work songs, gospel hymns, spirituals, and dance music that Joplin grew up with. Joplin grew up in Texarkana, Texas, teaching himself songs on a rickety square grand piano at 11, he met German-born music teacher Julius Weiss, who, awed by Joplin’s talent, accepted him as a student at no charge. Louis in 1885, at age 17, ragtime was so new, composers and publishers were still arguing about how to mark syncopation on sheet music. He, and the other early ragtime composers, considered themselves to be followers of the great classical tradition, especially as represented by Chopin.When Joplin first traveled to St. So Joplin was familiar with classical music literature. He gave him a good German-Conservatory based music education. A local German emegré and music professor, Julius Weiss, taught Scott for free. He was a big fan of Wagner which led him to write both the words and lyrics to his opera Treemonisha.Īs an aside, Joplin's father was a steel-driving man (like John Henry) so the father would be working on the railroad for six months each year (the company required six-month layoffs as steel-driving was physically exhausting), leaving Scott, his mother, and his sister at home (with no direct source of income.) Scott's mother made deal with a white family to be a cook, maid, nanny, and general helper in return for the family providing room, board, and teaching reading, math, and music to her kids. However, Scott Joplin had very good classical music training. No more than Beethoven invented the rumba-tango style with the third movement of his Piano Concerto #1. Scott Joplin was the first prominent Black American composer and his influence on the history of music cannot be overstated, so stating that a White composer actually invented his music 70 years earlier is really out-of-touch with current trends in music thought.Īs a single composition, probably not. The syncopated rhythms of ragtime are what separated from other genres of music at the time, and Joplin learned them in Black clubs and saloons of the American South and Midwest that he performed in during his teens and twenties.Īs friendly word of caution, I would generally advise against taking a small, uncharacteristic fragment of a composer's work and asserting - even in jest - that he "invented" a later genre of music. It is nothing like the triplet-swing feel of jazz. We know that Joplin performed his music with a light swing feel because he recorded piano rolls that we can still hear. His sheet music uses mostly eighth notes and sixteenth notes. Today, it is common for pieces with a swing feel to be notated with a triplet feel, but this is not the way Scott Joplin interpreted a swing feel. No, I think the similarity to ragtime is coincidental, and I believe the principal evidence is in the way Beethoven notated this passage.īeethoven has notated this section of the piece in 12/32, which indicates a triple meter - 4 groups of 3 32nd notes.
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