SCOTT
JOPLIN

"Joplin, Scott (b. near Marshall, Tex., or Shreveport, La., 24 Nov. 1868; d. New York, 1 Apr. 1917). Composer, pianist. He grew up in Texarkana, Tex., in a large musical family: his father, a former slave, had been a plantation fiddler, his mother a singer. He learned several instruments as a child and taught himself to play a used piano his parents bought for him; he later had classical piano training from a local German immigrant. In his early teens he sang, played, and taught professionally; he organized a touring vocal group. In about 1894 he left home, settling in St. Louis, where he played piano in brothels and cafes. He traveled widely, notably to the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, as a bandleader playing cornet and piano. In 1895 he toured a vaudeville circuit singing in his own eight-voice Texas Medley Quartette; he issued his first publications, two waltz songs, in Syracuse, N.Y.

"In 1896 Joplin resettled in Sedalia, Mo., to study music at George R. Smith College for Negroes. He also taught, played at a prominent black dance hall, the Maple Leaf Club, and published piano pieces with a Kansas City firm. With a local publisher, John Stark, he issued his first wholly original ragtime piece, the Maple Leaf Rag. This piece brought enormous success to Joplin and Stark, engendering a stream of some 40 piano rags, marches, and waltzes from Joplin's pen that spanned the rest of his career and ensured his financial stability.

"Success fired his ambitions; he produced a ragtime ballet, The Ragtime Dance, in 1899, but to little notice. He married, moved back to St. Louis, and in 1903 produced a ragtime opera, The Guest of Honor (lost), which achieved only modest recognition. Living in Chicago in 1906-7 he began his last major work, the ragtime opera Treemonisha. His health failing from syphilis, he separated from his wife. In 1907 he moved to New York following Stark; he remarried and continued to teach and compose. In 1911 he published Treemonisha at his own expense, and in 1915 staged a concert performance of it. Although critical interest was aroused, no producer came forth. He claimed to have finished other New York projects--a vaudeville sketch, a musical comedy, and a ragtime symphony--but the scores are unknown. Late in 1916 his sanity waned, and he was hospitalized until his death. A rebirth of recognition came over half a century later with extensive recording of his rags and a successful premiere of Treemonisha in Atlanta in 1972."

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