Scott Joplin (1868-1917)
Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist. He became famous during his lifetime for playing a style of music called Ragtime, and for the many Rags he composed for the piano. Among his most famous rags are the Maple Leaf Rag, The Entertainer, Rag-Time Dance, The Easy Winners, and Elite Syncopations. Joplin quickly became known as the “King of Ragtime”. Most of the compositions he wrote were Rags for the piano. However, toward the end of his life, Scott Joplin was working on a Ragtime opera called Treemonisha. The opera was never fully staged during his life. In 1916 Joplin got dementia which was the result of him catching syphilis. Scott Joplin died in 1917 (when he was 48 years old). His death was barely noticed because there were more pressing events going on during that time such as the entry of the United States into World War I.
In 1975 violinist Itzhak Perlman and jazz pianist André Previn teamed up together to record several of Perlman’s violin/piano arrangements of Scott Joplin rags. Scott Joplin’s music was all the rage at the time (the film Sting which featured Joplin’s music was released in 1973). The Perlman/Previn album (The Easy Winners) became a huge hit and the album along with sheetmusic of the arrangements is still popular so many years after it was recorded.
Here is Perlman and Previn playing Scott Joplin’s Pine Apple Rag from their 1975 album ‘The Easy Winners’.
