Scott Joplin (1868-1917) Rags
E. Power Biggs pedal harpsichord
CBS in the vinyl series Masterworks Portrait CBS 60269 released 1973

Side A
00:00 Original Rags (arr. Charles N. Daniëls) 1899
04:25 Maple Leaf Rag 1899
07:45 Peacherine Rag 1901
11:18 Elite Syncopations 1902
14:57 Cleopha – March and Two Step 1902

Side B
17:48 The Easy Winners – A Ragtime Two Step 1901
21:16 Pine Apple Rag 1908
24:49 Binks’ Waltz 1905
29:35 The Strenous Life – A Ragtime Two Step 1902
33:07 Sunflower Slow Drag – A Ragtime Two Step 1901

Ragtime – baroque sounds.
Music of the saloon, on the instrument of the salon.
Music from the high era of classic American ragtime, performed on
the oldest and most courtly of keyboard instruments.
Somehow – it all goes together, in a suitably elegant and somewhat
irreverent manner!
In its pristine precision, the harpsichord is, of course , ideal for dance
music – as much for the irresistible syncopation of rag as for the minuet
and gigue of Haydn and Mozart. It even has the engaging quality of
giving off an occasional suggestion of a ‘honky-tonk piano and – by
means of the “butt”, or harp stop, that dampens certain strings – a very
plausible imitation of a banjo.
Scott Joplin was born November 24, 1868, in Texarkana, Texas – the
son of Giles and Florence Givens Joplin. On early evidence of Joplin’s
musical gifts, his father (at great sacrifice) found him a second-hand
square piano. A local music teacher (a German, whose name is lost ip
. history) befriended the boy and gave him a grounding in musical grammar
and the classics.
At age 14, Joplin left home to earn his living by playing the piano in
the saloons, gambling houses, brothels, and vaudeville theatres of St.
Louis , Sedalia, and other towns – and, doubtless, on the show boats that
plied the Mississippi.
Through a rough-and-tumble life during the next 15 years, Joplin
evolved his unique style. At just about the age of 30, at the turn of the
century, he hit his musical stride with the composition of Maple Leaf and
other ragtimes that ushe~ed in a whole new era of native American music.
It was music based on a simple idea – the displacement of accent.
Though brimful of marvellous melody, his rags forsake 19th – century sentiment
for syncopation – for bold and virile rhythms. Over the steady
tempo maintained by the lett hand, accents of the melody, in the right,
jump on, off, and all around the beat. “Ragged rhythm” :- Ragtime.
It was music of entertainment, or for the dance but, by Joplin’s inventiveness
and pianistic skill, it quite transcends its point of origin. (Or was it
in fact the very place of origin that enabled him to distil the whole essence
of an explosive period of Americana, now almost a forgotten world?).
Throughout his life, Joplin hoped for recognition that his rags were as
significant to the development of music as anything happening in Europe.
In this quest he was only partially successful, though through publication
his music became widely known throughout the United States and
Europe. Debussy, Stravinsky, Milhaud adapted and developed similar
rhythmiC devices on, let’s say, larger canvases. But Joplin remains the
innovator, And the public’s accolade, “King of Ragtime”, trumpets his
claim to fame.
What can one say of these picturesque rags that they do not already
announce for themselves – of the ubiquitous Maple Leaf Rag. ‘or the
energetic Sirenueous Life. sait to have been prompted by some exploit or
pronouncement of Teddy Roosevelt? Or the Cleopha March, a favorite with
John Philip Sousa, and the charming bit of VienneSe whimsy, Binks’ Waltz,
with a suggestion of Schubert and the lilt of Strauss? Or The Easy Winners
rag where, after the very shortest of preli minary canters, they’re ott down
the straightaway, at Churchill Downs, perhaps, or even at the America’s
Cup races?

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