Ragtime Moments

When you say Scott Joplin, you say ragtime. The American pianist and composer Joplin (1868–1917) has written more than one hundred rags (including the famous ‘Maple Leaf Rag’ and ‘The Entertainer’) and received the nickname “King of Ragtime”. This musical genre is easily recognisable: a syncopated melody accompanied by a rhythmically simple, straight bass line. Since these two elements do not sound precisely simultaneously, but sometimes even collide, the music contains a lot of swing. Hence the name of the genre: the term ragtime stems from the ‘ragged time’ between melody and bass line. Most rags have been written for the piano. Around the year 1900 they were immensely popular, largely thanks to Joplin himself. After his death, the era of ragtime as mainstream music ended. Beginning in the 1970s, the interest in Joplin started to increase again, especially owing to the popular film The Sting which featured some of his compositions, including ‘The Entertainer’. The three rags brought together in this arrangement may not be Joplin’s most well-known works, yet they are certainly of a high standard.