Scott Joplin - Scott Joplin Suite

By: Peter Reeve

Scott Joplins (1868 - 1917) story is a classic example of rags to riches (no pun intended!). He was born of poor parents into a family where music was encouraged and his extraordinary talent fostered from an early age. Family disagreements forced him from home at the age of fourteen, to make a living as a pianist in the murky world of America honky-tonk and red light districts. Here he was exposed to a welter of musical influences: popular music, light classics, folk music old and new, black and white as he travelled around the Mississippi Valley States. This was the region that became the cradle of the new music called ragtime.
Once the Tin-Pan Alley moguls realised its commercial potential, ragtime raced from a local, to a national, to an international craze, with Joplin as its principal proponent. With success came the obsession to be recognised as a serious composer, but his two operas, A Guest of Honour (1903) and Treemonisha (1909) were both unsuccessful. Although Joplin continued to compose some of his best works in his latter years, the popularity of ragtime was waning, to be superseded by its offspring, jazz.
It was the use of two of his most popular rags, The Entertainer and The Easy Winners in the film The Sting, that sparked a revival in Joplins music, which is continuing to this day.