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Maple Leaf Rag Maple leaf rag Continue Ragtime composition for piano by Scott Joplin ‹ The template Infobox musical composition is being considered for merging. › Maple Leaf Ragby Scott JoplinFirst edition cover of the Maple Leaf RagGenreRagtimeFormRagPublished1899 (1899)PublisherJohn Stark & Son Maple Leaf Rag Maple Leaf Rag performed on a piano The Maple Leaf Rag (copyright registered on September 18, 1899)[1] is an early ragtime musical composition for piano composed by Scott Joplin. It was one of Joplin's early works, and became the model for ragtime compositions by later composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. [2] As a result, Joplin was called the King of Ragtime by his contemporaries. The play gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life. [quote needed] Despite the decline of Ragtime after Joplin's death in 1917, the Maple Leaf Rag continued to be recorded by many well-known artists. The ragtime revival of the 1970s brought it back to mainstream public announcement again. Background Main article: Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag is associated with the city of Sedalia, Missouri, although there was no record of Joplin having a permanent residence there before 1904. Joplin arrived in Sedalia in 1894 as a touring musician and remained with the family of Arthur Marshall, who later became one of Joplin's students and a ragtime composer in his own right. [3] Joplin played as a solo musician at dances and at the main black clubs in Sedalia, among them the Maple Leaf Club. It is possible that the cloth was named after the Maple Leaf Club, although there was no direct evidence to prove the link, and there were probably many other possible sources for the name in and around Sedalia at the time. [4] Although there were hundreds of rags in print by the time of the publication of the Maple Leaf Rag, Joplin was not far behind. His first published rag was Original Rags (March 1899). The Maple Leaf Rag was already known in Sedalia prior to its publication in 1899; composer and pianist Brun Campbell claimed to have seen the manuscript of the work in or around 1898. [5] Prior to its publication, Joplin expected the play to be a success- he told Arthur Marshall that Maple Leaf will make me the king of ragtime composers. [6] [7] Cover of the third[citation needed] edition of the Maple Leaf leaf music The exact circumstances that led to publication of the Maple Leaf Rag are unknown, and there are versions of the event that contradict each other. After approaching several publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stillwell Stark on August 10, 1899 for $0.01 royalty on all sale of the rag, with a reserve price of $0.25. The Maple Leaf Rag was published between August 10 September 20, 1899, when the United States Copyright Office received two copies of the score. [8] The rag was in 1900 or 1901 with a new cover with a green maple leaf and a photo of Joplin. [9] In 1903, Stark gave a Maple Leaf Rag Song, an arrangement of Joplin's music with words from Sydney Brown. [10] Structure AA BB A CC DD Maple Leaf Rag is a multi-strain ragtime march with athletic bass lines and offbeat melodies. Each of the four parts has a recurring theme and a striding bass line with abundant seventh chords. The piece can be considered the archetypal canvas due to its influence on the genre; the structure was the basis for many other rags, including Sensation by Joseph Lamb. It is more carefully constructed than almost all previous rags, and the syncopations, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were new at the time. In general, the piece is considered difficult; [11] one must have very good coordination in the left hand to perform the piece successfully, particularly for the trio, which involves jumps of two octaves. 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. Gladiolus Rag, a later composition by Joplin, is a developed version of the Maple Leaf Rag showcasing Joplin's increasing musical sophistication, and is usually played at a slightly slower pace. In addition, the first strain of Joplin's The Cascades, Leola and Sugar Cane are modeled after the structure used in the composition. The composition begins in the key of A-flat major and changes to D-flat major during the first part of the trio, then modulates back to A-flat major. Lyrics In 1903 Stark released a Maple Leaf Rag Song, an arrangement of Joplin's music with words by Sydney Brown. [10] Brown's lyrics tell the story of a poor man from Accomack County, Virginia, who stumbles into a ballroom where, despite his concerns about the state of his appearance he manages to wow the crowd with the Maple Leaf Lap. While the men are jealous of his dance skills and pull their razors, the women love him, and the most beautiful belle sends in front of a carriage and the two of them drive away. [12] Modern ragtime composer Ron O'Dell has noted that the song has characteristics with rap, such as the lyrics, the lyrics written in the African American Vernacular English of the time, and the fact that lyrics are sung about the music's least melodic tension. [13] Popularity and legacy A 1906 recording of the Maple Leaf Rag by the United States Marine Band. This is the first surviving recording of the Maple Leaf Rag [14][10][15][16] Problems playing this file? See media help. Maple Leaf Rag – by Scott Joplin (June 1916) A June 1916 piano scroll recording by Scott Joplin for The Aeolian Company. Having trouble playing this file? See media help. There are many claims about the sale of the Maple Leaf Rag, for that 1 million sheet music copies were sold in the composer's life, making Scott Joplin the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music. [2] [17] Joplin's first biographer Rudi Blesh wrote that during his first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, becoming the first major instrumental sheet music hit in America. [17] However, research by the later biographer Edward A. Berlin of Joplin showed that this was not the case; the first circulation of 400 took a year to sell, and under the terms of Joplin's contract with a royalty of $0.01, Joplin would have given an income of $4, or about $123 in its current value. Later sales were regular and would have given Joplin an income that would have covered his expenses; in 1909 the estimated sale would have given him an income of $600 annually (about $17,073 in current prices). [8] In addition to selling sheet music, it was also popular in orchestrations for dance bands and marching bands for years. Joplin failed to repeat the success of Maple Leaf Rag, with none of his other famous rags (like The Entertainer) garnering as much popularity as the Maple Leaf Rag did. The royalties earned through the sheet music sale has provided Joplin with a steady income for the rest of his life, however. Soon after the publication of the Maple leaf cloth, the earliest recordings of the rag took place; bandleader Wilbur Sweatman recorded it a year later on phonograph cylinder, but there are no known specimens that have survived. [10] [15] [16] The first surviving record of the rag comes from the second known recording of the rag by the United States Military Band from 1906. [18] While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is kept on seven piano reels for use in mechanical player pianos. All seven were made in 1916. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin made these recordings he might have been uncoordinating the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis, the disease that took his life in 1917. [19] The recording of Maple Leaf Rag, on the Aeolean Uni-Record label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as shocking ... disorganized and completely disturbing to hear. [20] Berlin notes that the Maple Leaf Rag role was painfully bad and probably the truest record of Joplin's play at the time. The role, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life. [21] The song was a selection in the White Star Line songbook in the early 1900s, and could possibly have been played aboard the RMS Titanic during its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912. The melody remained in the repertoire of jazz bands decades later, with artists such as the New Orleans Kings in the 1920s, and Sidney Bechet in the 1930s give it up-to-date adjustments, while maintaining a timeless quality. As an indication of his popularity and recognition, it was performed on phonograph records six times in each of the three decades after its first publication. [22] In 1930, it was featured in the gangster film classic, The Public Enemy. Maple Leaf Rag was the Joplin piece most often found at 78 rpm records. [18] In November 1970, Joshua Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags[23] on the classical label Nonesuch, which featured as the first track the Maple Leafy rag. It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. [24] The Billboard Best-Selling Classical LP's chart for September 28, 1974 has set the record at Number 5, with follow-up Volume 2 at Number 4, and a combined set of both volumes at Number 3.
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