Joplin was born into a musical family of laborers in Northeast Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers, most notably Julius Weiss. Joplin grew up in Texarkana, where he formed a vocal quartet, and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s he left his job as a laborer with the railroad, and travelled around the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.
Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894, and earned a living as a piano teacher, continuing to tour the South. In Sedalia, he taught future ragtime composers Arthur Marshall, Scott Hayden and Brun Campbell. Joplin began publishing music in 1895, and publication of his Maple Leaf Rag in 1899 brought him fame. This piece had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life, though Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems.
Joplin moved to St. Louis in 1901, where he continued to compose and publish music, and regularly performed in the St Louis community. By the time he had moved to St. Louis, he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors, and an inability to speak clearly, as a result of having contracted syphilis. The score to his first opera, A Guest of Honor, was confiscated in 1903 with his belongings, owing to his non-payment of bills, and is considered lost by biographer Edward A. Berlin and others.[3]
He continued to compose and publish music, and in 1907 moved to New York City, seeking to find a producer for a new opera. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form that made him famous, without much monetary success. His second opera, Treemonisha, was not received well at its partially staged performance in 1915.
In 1916, suffering from tertiary syphilis and by consequence rapidly deteriorating health, Joplin descended into dementia. He was admitted to a mental institution in January 1917, and died there three months later at the age of 49.
Joplin's death is widely considered to mark the end of ragtime as a mainstream music format, and in the next several years it evolved with other styles into jazz, and eventually big band swing. His music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album of Joplin's rags recorded by Joshua Rifkin, followed by the Academy Award–winning movie The Sting, which featured several of his compositions, such as The Entertainer. The opera Treemonisha was finally produced in full to wide acclaim in 1972. In 1976, Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize.
Early life
Joplin was born in Linden, Texas,
either in late 1867 or early 1868. Although for many years his birth
date was accepted as November 24, 1868, research has revealed that this
is almost certainly inaccurate – the most likely approximate date being
the second half of 1867.[4] He was the second of six children (the others being Monroe, Robert, William, Myrtle, and Ossie)[5] born to Giles Joplin, an ex-slave from North Carolina, and Florence Givens, a freeborn African-American woman from Kentucky.[6][7][8]
The Joplins subsequently moved to Texarkana where Giles worked as a
laborer for the railroad while Florence was a cleaner. Joplin's father
had played the violin for plantation parties in North Carolina, and his mother sang and played the banjo.[5]
Joplin was given a rudimentary musical education by his family and from
the age of seven he was allowed to play the piano while his mother
cleaned.[9]At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Joplin left the family for another woman, leaving Florence to provide for her children through domestic work. Biographer Susan Curtis speculated that his mother's support of Joplin's musical education was an important causal factor in this separation. His father argued that it took the boy away from practical employment that would supplement the family income.[10]
According to a family friend, the young Joplin was serious and ambitious, studying music and playing the piano after school. While a few local teachers aided him, he received most of his music education from Julius Weiss, a German-Jewish music professor who had immigrated to the United States from Germany.[11] Weiss had studied music at university in Germany and was listed in town records as a Professor of music. Impressed by Joplin's talent, and realizing his family's dire straits, Weiss taught him free of charge. He tutored the 11-year-old Joplin until he was 16, during which time Weiss introduced him to folk and classical music, including opera. Weiss helped Joplin appreciate music as an "art as well as an entertainment,"[12] and helped his mother acquire a used piano. According to his wife Lottie, Joplin never forgot Weiss and in his later years, when he achieved fame as a composer, sent his former teacher "...gifts of money when he was old and ill," until Weiss died.[11] At the age of 16 Joplin performed in a vocal quartet with three other boys in and around Texarkana, playing piano. In addition he taught guitar and mandolin.[12]
Life in the Southern states and Chicago
In the late 1880s, having performed at various local events as a teenager, Joplin chose to give up work as a laborer with the railroad and left Texarkana to become a traveling musician.[13] Little is known about his movements at this time, although he is recorded in Texarkana in July 1891 as a member of the Texarkana Minstrels in a performance that happened to be raising money for a monument to Jefferson Davis, President of the Southern Confederacy.[14] He soon discovered, however, that there were few opportunities for black pianists. Churches and brothels were among the few options for steady work. Joplin played pre-ragtime 'jig-piano' in various red-light districts throughout the mid-South, and some claim he was in Sedalia and St. Louis during this time.[15][16]In 1893 Joplin was in Chicago for the World's Fair. While in Chicago, he formed his first band playing cornet and began arranging music for the group to perform. Although the World's Fair minimized the involvement of African-Americans, black performers still came to the saloons, cafés and brothels that lined the fair. The exposition was attended by 27 million Americans and had a profound effect on many areas of American cultural life, including ragtime. Although specific information is sparse, numerous sources have credited the Chicago World Fair with spreading the popularity of ragtime.[17] Joplin found that his music, as well as that of other black performers, was popular with visitors.[18] By 1897 ragtime had become a national craze in American cities, and was described by the St. Louis Dispatch as "...a veritable call of the wild, which mightily stirred the pulses of city bred people."[19]
Life in Missouri
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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[20][21][22][23]
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In 1899, Joplin married Belle, the sister-in-law of collaborator Scott Hayden. Although there were hundreds of rags in print by the time the Maple Leaf Rag was published, Joplin was not far behind. His first published rag, Original Rags, had been completed in 1897, the same year as the first ragtime work in print, the Mississippi Rag by William Krell. The Maple Leaf Rag was likely to have been known in Sedalia before its publication in 1899; Brun Campbell claimed to have seen the manuscript of the work in around 1898.[31] The exact circumstances that led to the Maple Leaf Rag's publication are unknown, and a number of versions of the event contradict each other. After several unsuccessful approaches to publishers, Joplin signed a contract on August 10, 1899 with John Stillwell Stark, a retailer of musical instruments who later became his most important publisher. The contract stipulated that Joplin would receive a 1% royalty on all sales of the rag, with a minimum sales price of 25 cents.[32] With the inscription "To the Maple Leaf Club" prominently visible along the top of at least some editions, it is likely that the rag was named after the Maple Leaf Club, although there is no direct evidence to prove the link, and there were many other possible sources for the name in and around Sedalia at the time.[33]
There have been many claims about the sales of the Maple Leaf Rag, for example that Joplin was the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music.[2] Joplin's first biographer, Rudi Blesh wrote that during its first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, and became "...the first great instrumental sheet music hit in America."[34] However, research by Joplin's later biographer Edward A. Berlin demonstrated that this was not the case; the initial print-run of 400 took one year to sell, and under the terms of Joplin's contract with a 1% royalty would have given Joplin an income of $4 (or approximately $113 at current prices). Later sales were steady, and would have given Joplin an income that would have covered his expenses. In 1909, estimated sales would have given him an income of $600 annually (approximately $15,749 in current prices).[35]
The Maple Leaf Rag did serve as a model for the hundreds of rags to come from future composers, especially in the development of classic ragtime.[36] After the publication of the Maple Leaf Rag, Joplin was soon being described as King of rag time writers, not least by himself[37] on the covers of his own work, such as The Easy Winners and Elite Syncopations.
After the Joplins moved to St. Louis in early 1900, they had a baby daughter who died only a few months after birth. Joplin's relationship with his wife was difficult, as she had no interest in music. They eventually separated and then divorced.[38] About this time, Joplin collaborated with Scott Hayden in the composition of four rags.[39] It was in St. Louis that Joplin produced some of his best-known works, including The Entertainer, March Majestic, and the short theatrical work The Ragtime Dance.
In June 1904, Joplin married Freddie Alexander of Little Rock, Arkansas, the young woman to whom he had dedicated The Chrysanthemum. She died on September 10, 1904 of complications resulting from a cold, ten weeks after their wedding.[40] Joplin's first work copyrighted after Freddie's death, Bethena, was described by one biographer as "...an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of ragtime waltzes."[41]
During this time, Joplin created an opera company of 30 people and produced his first opera A Guest of Honor for a national tour. It is not certain how many productions were staged, or even if this was an all-black show or a racially mixed production. During the tour, either in Springfield, Illinois, or Pittsburg, Kansas, someone associated with the company stole the box office receipts. Joplin could not meet the company's payroll or pay for its lodgings at a theatrical boarding house. It is believed that the score for A Guest of Honor was lost and perhaps destroyed because of non-payment of the company's boarding house bill.[42]
Later years
In 1914, Joplin and Lottie self-published his Magnetic Rag as the Scott Joplin Music Company, which he had formed the previous December.[44] Biographer Vera Brodsky Lawrence speculates that Joplin was aware of his advancing deterioration due to syphilis and was "...consciously racing against time." In her sleeve notes on the 1992 Deutsche Grammophon release of Treemonisha she notes that he "...plunged feverishly into the task of orchestrating his opera, day and night, with his friend Sam Patterson standing by to copy out the parts, page by page, as each page of the full score was completed."[43]
Death
By 1916, Joplin was suffering from tertiary syphilis and a resulting descent into insanity.[45][46] In January 1917, he was admitted to Manhattan State Hospital, a mental institution.[47] He died there on April 1 of syphilitic dementia at the age of 49[43][48] and was buried in a pauper's grave that remained unmarked for 57 years. His grave at Saint Michaels Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally given a marker in 1974.[49]Works
When Joplin was learning the piano, serious musical circles condemned ragtime because of its association with the vulgar and inane songs "...cranked out by the tune-smiths of Tin Pan Alley."[50] As a composer Joplin refined ragtime, elevating it above the low and unrefined form played by the "...wandering honky-tonk pianists... playing mere dance music" of popular imagination.[51] This new art form, the classic rag, combined Afro-American folk music's syncopation and 19th-century European romanticism, with its harmonic schemes and its march-like tempos.[39][52] In the words of one critic, "Ragtime was basically... an Afro-American version of the polka, or its analog, the Sousa-style march."[53] With this as a foundation, Joplin intended his compositions to be played exactly as he wrote them – without improvisation.[27] Joplin wrote his rags as "classical" music in miniature form in order to raise ragtime above its "cheap bordello" origins and produced work that opera historian Elise Kirk described as, "... more tuneful, contrapuntal, infectious, and harmonically colorful than any others of his era."[15]
Some speculate that Joplin's achievements were influenced by his classically trained German music teacher Julius Weiss, who may have brought a polka rhythmic sensibility from the old country to the 11-year old Joplin.[54] As Curtis put it, "The educated German could open up the door to a world of learning and music of which young Joplin was largely unaware."[50]
Joplin's first and most significant hit, the Maple Leaf Rag, was described as the archetype of the classic rag, and influenced subsequent rag composers for at least 12 years after its initial publication thanks to its rhythmic patterns, melody lines, and harmony,[36] though with the exception of Joseph Lamb, they generally failed to enlarge upon it.[55]
Treemonisha
Main article: Treemonisha
The opera's setting is a former slave community in an isolated forest
near Joplin's childhood town Texarkana in September 1884. The plot
centers on an 18-year old woman Treemonisha who is taught to read by a
white woman, and then leads her community against the influence of
conjurers who prey on ignorance and superstition. Treemonisha is
abducted and is about to be thrown into a wasps' nest when her friend
Remus rescues her. The community realizes the value of education and the
liability of their ignorance before choosing her as their teacher and
leader.[56][57][58]Joplin wrote both the score and the libretto for the opera, which largely follows the form of European opera with many conventional arias, ensembles and choruses. In addition the themes of superstition and mysticism evident in Treemonisha are common in the operatic tradition, and certain aspects of the plot echo devices in the work of the German composer Richard Wagner (of which Joplin was aware). A sacred tree Treemonisha sits beneath recalls the tree that Siegmund takes his enchanted sword from in Die Walküre, and the retelling of the heroine's origins echos aspects of the opera Siegfried. In addition, African-American folk tales also influence the story—the wasp nest incident is similar to the story of Br'er Rabbit and the briar patch.[59]
Treemonisha is not a ragtime opera—because Joplin employed the styles of ragtime and other black music sparingly, using them to convey "racial character," and to celebrate the music of his childhood at the end of the 19th century. The opera has been seen as a valuable record of rural black music from late 19th century re-created by a "skilled and sensitive participant."[60]
Berlin speculates about parallels between the plot and Joplin's own life. He notes that Lottie Joplin (the composer's third wife) saw a connection between the character Treemonisha's wish to lead her people out of ignorance, and a similar desire in the composer. In addition, it has been speculated that Treemonisha represents Freddie, Joplin's second wife, because the date of the opera's setting was likely to have been the month of her birth.[61]
At the time of the opera's publication in 1911, the American Musician and Art Journal praised it as, "...an entirely new form of operatic art."[62] Later critics have also praised the opera as occupying a special place in American history, with its heroine, "...a startlingly early voice for modern civil rights causes, notably the importance of education and knowledge to African American advancement."[63] Curtis's conclusion is similar: "In the end, Treemonisha offered a celebration of literacy, learning, hard work, and community solidarity as the best formula for advancing the race."[58] Berlin describes it as a "...fine opera, certainly more interesting than most operas then being written in the United States," but later states that Joplin's own libretto showed the composer, "...was not a competent dramatist," with the book not up to the quality of the music.[64]
Performance skills
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While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano rolls for use in mechanical player pianos. All seven were made in 1916. Of these, the six released under the Connorized label show evidence of significant editing,[67] probably by William Axtmann, the staff arranger at Connorized.[68] Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin reached St. Louis, he may have experienced discoordination of the fingers, tremors, and an inability to speak clearly—all symptoms of the syphilis that took his life in 1917.[69] Biographer Blesh described the second roll recording of Maple Leaf Rag on the UniRecord label from June 1916 as "...shocking... disorganized and completely distressing to hear."[70] While there is disagreement among piano-roll experts about the accuracy of the reproduction of a player's performance,[71][72][73][74] Berlin notes that the Maple Leaf Rag roll was, "painfully bad," and likely to be the truest record of Joplin's playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life.[67]
Legacy
Joshua Rifkin, a leading Joplin recording artist, wrote, "A pervasive sense of lyricism infuses his work, and even at his most high-spirited, he cannot repress a hint of melancholy or adversity ... He had little in common with the fast and flashy school of ragtime that grew up after him."[75] Joplin historian Bill Ryerson adds that, "In the hands of authentic practitioners like Joplin, ragtime was a disciplined form capable of astonishing variety and subtlety ... Joplin did for the rag what Chopin did for the mazurka. His style ranged from tones of torment to stunning serenades that incorporated the bolero and the tango."[38] Biographer Susan Curtis wrote that Joplin's music had helped to "...revolutionise American music and culture" by removing Victorian restraint.[76]
Composer and actor Max Morath found it striking that the vast majority of Joplin's work did not enjoy the popularity of the Maple Leaf Rag, because while the compositions were of increasing lyrical beauty and delicate syncopation they remained obscure and unheralded during his lifetime.[55] Joplin apparently realized that his music was ahead of its time: As music historian Ian Whitcomb mentions that Joplin, "...opined that Maple Leaf Rag would make him 'King of Ragtime Composers' but he also knew that he would not be a pop hero in his own lifetime. 'When I'm dead twenty-five years, people are going to recognize me,' he told a friend." Just over thirty years later he was recognized, and later historian Rudi Blesh wrote a large book about ragtime, which he dedicated to the memory of Joplin.[51]
Although he was penniless and disappointed at the end of his life, Joplin set the standard for ragtime compositions and played a key role in the development of ragtime music. And as a pioneer composer and performer, he helped pave the way for young black artists to reach American audiences of both races. After his death, jazz historian Floyd Levin noted: "Those few who realized his greatness bowed their heads in sorrow. This was the passing of the king of all ragtime writers, the man who gave America a genuine native music."[77]
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