Satie Discovers Ragtime

By Maureen Buja, Interlude

James Reese Europe returning to the US
with his 15th New York band

Although we associate ragtime music with composers such as Scott Joplin and Joseph Lamb, we rarely consider what effect this new musical style might have had internationally. Through performers such as Jelly Roll Morton and band leaders such as W.C. Handy and James Reese Europe the music emerged from the bordellos and into mainstream acceptance.

Erik Satie (ca. 1900)

Ragtime moved to Europe on the boats that moved people across the Atlantic, which needed the latest music to entertain their passengers. James Reese Europe’s 369th Regiment band toured France in 1918 to great approval. They made recordings for the French Pathé company, including some syncopated numbers, such as The Memphis Blues, that were credited as starting ‘….ragimitis in France.’

Hello Ma Baby sheet music (1899)

American band leaders such as John Philip Sousa, who toured internationally, also brought American music to other shores. Combining his usual straightforward march tempos with the syncopations and polyrhythms of the new ragtime style brought his music to the latest style.

Satie and Debussy in Debussy’s home (1911) (photo by Igor Stravinsky)

Erik Satie (1866-1925) led the French avant-garde in music, anticipating many late 20th century artistic developments such as minimalism. When ragtime turned up, he started incorporating it into his style.

Two works show the influence of ragtime, with its emphasis on syncopation, on Satie. The first was in his 1900 work La mort de Monsieur Mouche (The Death of M. Mouche). It was originally written as incidental music for a 3-act play by Satie’s friend, the Spanish poet Patrice Contamine de Latour, writing as ‘Lord Cheminot.’ All that remains of the incidental music is this Prélude, which is evidence of Satie’s first experiments with ragtime.

Kitten on the Keys sheet music (1922)

A work from 4 years later, Le Piccadilly, is much more straightforward ragtime march. The original title was La Transatlantique, the nickname for the American heiresses who were flocking to Europe to marry impoverished aristocrats. Some examples include the Princess de Polignac, born Winnaretta Singer of the sewing machine fame. Winston Churchill’s mother, Jennie Jerome, was another of these American ‘dollar princesses.’ The original title memorialized their mode of travel, whereas the new title Le Piccadilly, was more about where they arrived.

You can hear some links in the main theme with an 1899 song, ‘Hello! Ma Baby!’ about that new invention, the telephone, where the beloved is referred to as his ‘ragtime doll.’

Ragtime had its start in the late 19th century in middle American, in the black communities around St. Louis, Missouri, but by 1900 had become widely popular all across America. As mentioned above, it travelled to Europe and, along with infecting Satie, it also hit Debussy. In his piano piece Le petite negre, we can also hear the influence of the Hello! Ma Baby melody.

Ragtime faded as the new encompassing style of jazz became the popular favourite. Ragtime was taken over by novelty piano works such as Zez Confrey’s Kitten on the Keys, a work with intentional wrong notes and sudden key shifts that is actually quite difficult to play, particularly at speed.

As music goes around the world, each new country takes what it has received and creates its own version. Satie and Debussy’s takes on ragtime are uniquely French, while being at the same time, ragtime.

7 brilliant rags and pieces by Scott Joplin that you should know

Maple Leaf Rag was Scott Joplin’s biggest hit in his lifetime. Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

 

From piano rags to rich opera overtures, here’s a look at Scott Joplin’s greatest works.

Since the revival of his music in the 1970s, history has remembered Scott Joplin as “the King of Ragtime”. His collection of rags is utterly identifiable, their sound joyously distinctive, and their complex bass patterns and sporadic syncopation still imitated by composers today.

But what’s also true is that Scott Joplin was one of the landmark American composers of the 20th century.

From his Pulitzer-winning opera to a rag-inspired classical waltz, here’s the very best of one of music history’s most extraordinary Black voices.

1. The Entertainer (1902)

   Scott Joplin’s death in April 1917 marked a lapsed interest in Ragtime and his music. And it wasn’t until over half a decade later that people started to turn their ears back to Joplin’s catchy rags. In the early 1970s, Joshua Rifkin released a hugely successful piano album of his works, and Academy Award-winning film The Sting used several of Joplin’s compositions including ‘The Entertainer’ and ‘Solace’ (see below), cueing a revival of the composer’s long-neglected musical catalogue.

   ‘The Entertainer’ was first published in the early 1900s as sheet music, in the form of piano rolls for player pianos. Now, it is one of the essential works in the piano canon. You’ll even hear it among the playlists of tempting music piped out of ice cream trucks in the US. Ragtime with your rum n’ raisin? Go on then…

   
   

   Scott Joplin's 'The Entertainer' played on a 1915 piano

   Credit: Lord Vinheteiro

2. Maple Leaf Rag (1899)

   Joplin was often plagued with financial woes and struggled to secure funding for many of his works. When his first rag, Original Rags, was published, he was forced to share credit with another arranger. For his second, Maple Leaf Rag, Joplin made sure he wasn’t going to get stung again. So, he hired a lawyer and made sure he would receive a one-cent royalty for every copy of sheet music sold (still, not exactly the big bucks).

   Maple Leaf Rag became Joplin’s first big hit, and the piece that made his name synonymous with ragtime. But while a steady stream of earnings from Maple Leaf made their way into Joplin’s pocket throughout his short lifetime, it was unfortunately a success never to be repeated.

   
   

   Scott Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag – but it's played WAY too fast

   Credit: Kristen Mosca

   Maple Leaf Rag also inspired Joplin’s own elegant Gladiolus Rag – take a listen to their similarities below.

3. Solace (1909)

   Solace elevated the rag into a more developed artform. Unusually complex for a rag, it is the only known Joplin piece to use tango form and highlights Joplin’s lifelong desire to be a “serious” (his words) classical composer. Today, its staying power is perfectly demonstrated in its use as the loading music for video game BioShock Infinite.

4. Stoptime Rag (1910)

   Here is one of the first examples in music of stop-time – a device heard in jazz and blues, that is absolutely central to the rhythmic spirit of Ragtime. It grew popular around the turn of the century, and gives the impression in music that the tempo has changed.

   Joplin included directions in the music for performers to stomp their feet to the beat. Indeed, gone were the days of a left-hand accompaniment – instead, the left joins the right to create a melody line with richer harmony, while the pianist’s foot provides a percussive accompaniment of stamps.

   Read more: Meet George Walker, the first Black composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music

5. The Ragtime Dance (1902)

   This relentlessly toe-tapping dance was originally published for solo piano, with foot stamps written into the original sheet music to achieve that stop-time effect.

   In the 1980s, legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman came across The Ragtime Dance and fell in love with the piece. He rearranged it for violin, piano and finger snaps and brought pianist André Previn on board, giving Joplin’s piece the classical clout that it always deserved.

6. Bethena: A Concert Waltz (1905)

   Bethena: A Concert Waltz was the first piece Joplin wrote after his wife, Freddie, tragically died of pneumonia in September 1904, 10 weeks after their wedding.

   The piece was soon forgotten, but Joshua Rifkin’s 1970s album of piano rags helped revive this unique work that marries the classical waltz and the rag. It’s been described as “Joplin’s finest waltz”, one that shows his excellence as a classical composer.

7. Treemonisha (1911)

   Not one of his best-known works, but an important one for which Joplin was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1976, Treemonisha was one of Joplin’s two only operas (he also wrote one ballet).

   Speaking about forgotten Black classical composers, Comedian Lenny Henry writes for The Times: “What is great about Treemonisha is that the heroine does not die like most classical leading ladies – by the knife, by poison or yearning for a man – but becomes a leader of the community.

   “Joplin was way ahead of his time. He found it very difficult to get his work performed.”

   Treemonisha, which combines the Romanticism of the early 20th century with Black folk song tradition, was never staged in his lifetime. When it was finally first performed in 1972 by the Houston Grand Opera, one music historian described it as a “semimiracle”.