Joplin, Scott

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Joplin, Scott

c. 1867
April 1, 1917

Born in eastern Texas, some 35 miles (56 kilometers) south of present-day Texarkana, to an ex-slave father and a freeborn mother, ragtime composer Joplin rose from humble circumstances to be widely regarded as the "King of Ragtime Composers." The frequently cited birth date of November 24, 1868, is incorrect; census records and his death certificate show that he was born between June 1, 1867, and mid-January, 1868.

In the early years of his career he worked with minstrel companies and vocal quartets, in bands as a cornetist, and as a pianist. His earliest published compositions (1895–1896) were conventional songs and marches. In 1894 he settled in Sedalia, Missouri, where he attended the George R. Smith College. His "Maple Leaf Rag" (1899), which memorializes a black social club in Sedalia, became the most popular piano rag of the era. By 1901 he was famous and moved to St. Louis, where he worked primarily as a composer.

Despite his success in ragtime, he wanted to compose for the theater. In 1903 he formed a company to stage his first opera, A Guest of Honor (now lost). He started on a tour through midwestern states in August 1903, but the box office receipts were stolen after an early performance. Out of money, he was unable to pay the troupe's boardinghouse bill and was forced to abandon his property, including the opera score, and he terminated the tour. He returned to St. Louis and resumed composing piano rags. In 1907 he moved to New York, where major music publishers were eager to issue his rags, but he still aspired to be a "serious" composer. In 1911 he completed and self-published his second opera, Treemonisha, in which he expressed the view that his race's problems were exacerbated by ignorance and superstition and could be overcome by education. He never succeeded in mounting a full production of this work.

Despite his efforts with larger musical forms, Joplin is today revered for his piano rags, these being the most sophisticated examples of the genre. His published output includes fifty-two piano pieces, of which forty-two are rags (including seven collaborations with younger colleagues); twelve songs; one instructional piece; and one opera. Several songs, rags, a symphony, and several stage works—his first opera, a musical, and a vaudeville—were never published and are lost.

A Joplin revival began in late 1970 when Nonesuch Records, a classical music label, issued a recording of Joplin rags played by Joshua Rifkin. For the record industry, this recording gave Joplin the status of a classical composer. This status was enhanced a year later when the New York Public Library issued the two-volume Collected Works of Scott Joplin. Thereafter, a number of classical concert artists included Joplin's music in their recitals. In 1972 his opera Treemonisha received its first full performance, staged in Atlanta in conjunction with an Afro-American Music Workshop at Morehouse College, and in 1975 the opera reached Broadway. (Joplin's orchestration is lost; there have been three modern orchestrations of the work—by T. J. Anderson, William Bolcom, and Gunther Schuller.) In 1974 the award-winning movie The Sting used several Joplin rags in its musical score, bringing Joplin to the attention of an even wider public. "The Entertainer" (1902), the film's main theme, became one of the most popular pieces of the mid-1970s. Further recognition of Joplin as an artist came in 1976 with a special Pulitzer Prize and in 1983 with a U.S. postage stamp bearing his image.

See also Opera; Musical Theater; Ragtime