![]() ![]() The Maple Leaf Rag is also said to have been written in St. From then on, he earned his living there as a teacher and composer of music (especially ragtimes). In 1899, Scott Joplin seized the opportunity to settle in St. ![]() Little could John Stark have known at the time that by publishing Scott Joplin’s music, he was not only giving Joplin’s ragtime music a chance to assert itself in the world, but was also laying the foundations for the later burgeoning jazz movement. Through John Stark, the Maple Leaf Rag, Wall Street and Pleasant Moments found their way to the masses of music enthusiasts. Scott Joplin teamed up with the music publisher John Stark for this: John Stark (1841 – 1927) is regarded today as one of the most important publishers of ragtime music and promoted Scott Joplin by publishing his music and thus making it accessible to a wide audience. There was no law prohibiting people of African-American descent from publishing music. Scott Joplin actually hoped to begin a successful career as a concert pianist and composer of classical music: But the conditions in American society at the time simply would not have made such a career possible.īut there was still one possibility for Joplin: he could try his hand at publishing music. This college was one of the few in the USA that specialized in training musical talent of African-American descent. At some point, however, Scott Joplin grew tired of constantly traveling around: He decided to study music at George R. The so-called “wandering years” from the mid-1880s are considered to have been very important for the young Scott Joplin: during this time, the young musician passed through various bars and brothels where he came into contact with the ruling social class – during this phase of his life, he traveled to Oklahoma City, New Orleans and St. Jazz can therefore also be indirectly traced back to the influences of Julius Weiss, who was born in Saxony. After many decades in which it was unknown who set the young Joplin on his musical path, posterity now agrees that Scott Joplin would never have existed in this form without Julius Weiss’ commitment. ![]() This may explain Scott Joplin’s later desire to compose operas.īut Julius Weiss not only taught Joplin the basics of European music: Weiss gave the young musical talent a full introduction to European culture. The musician Weiss is said to have played the works of the great composers to the young Scott Joplin – as Weiss was a great lover of opera, he also introduced the young Joplin to numerous operas. Weiss gave Joplin free piano lessons, trained his ear for music and taught him the basics of reading music. For a long time, it was completely unknown who taught Scott Joplin in his early years – it was only over sixty years after Joplin’s death in 1917 that anyone became aware of the life of Julius Weiss. In the United States at the time, which was characterized by racial segregation, a musically talented boy of African-American descent would rarely – if ever – have had the opportunity to take professional piano lessons.īut Scott Joplin was very lucky: his musical talent was discovered at a very young age by the German-born music professor Julius Weiss. The pianist Scott Joplin is said to have mainly taught himself to play the piano – but even a self-taught pianist needs inspiration to learn his craft. Weiss gave the young musical talent a full introduction to European culture. In the arrangements by Marvin Hamlisch, the audience was invited to discover ragtime in the course of the film – the music fitted into the setting of the movie, so to speak. Ragtime probably first became known to a wide audience when the film The Sting, which won seven Academy Awards and starred Robert Redford and Paul Newman, was released in 1973. The biggest difference between jazz and ragtime is that ragtime still lacked the improvisational element that is so characteristic of jazz: what role did the composer Scott Joplin actually play in the invention of jazz by creating the genre of ragtime? Ragtime is often regarded as the forerunner of jazz – without question, musical movements such as jazz would never have developed without ragtime. When the term ragtime is mentioned, one inevitably thinks of an unmistakable musician who invented the ragtime genre: The composer and pianist Scott Joplin (1867/68 – 1917) is considered the inventor of ragtime. ![]()
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