42 Facts About Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin was an American composer and pianist.

Scott Joplin grew up in a musical family of railway laborers in Texarkana, Texas.

Scott Joplin went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which helped make ragtime a national craze by 1897.

Scott Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894 and worked as a piano teacher.

Scott Joplin began publishing music in 1895, and his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame and a steady income.

In 1901, Scott Joplin moved to St Louis and two years later scored his first opera, A Guest of Honor.

In 1907, Scott Joplin moved to New York City to find a producer for a new opera.

Scott Joplin's music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album recorded by Joshua Rifkin.

Treemonisha, his second opera, was produced in 1972 and in 1976 Scott Joplin was awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

Scott Joplin was the second of six children born to Giles Scott Joplin, a former slave from North Carolina, and Florence Givens, a freeborn African-American woman from Kentucky.

At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Scott Joplin left the family for another woman and Florence struggled to support her children through domestic work.

At 16, Scott Joplin performed in a vocal quartet with three other boys in and around Texarkana, playing piano.

Weiss helped Scott Joplin appreciate music as an "art as well as an entertainment" and helped Florence acquire a used piano.

However, Scott Joplin soon learned that there were few opportunities for black pianists.

Scott Joplin played pre-ragtime "jig-piano" in various red-light districts throughout the mid-South, and some claim he was in Sedalia and St Louis, Missouri, during this time.

In 1893, while in Chicago for the World's Fair, Scott Joplin formed a band in which he played cornet and arranged the band's music.

Scott Joplin found that his music, as well as that of other black performers, was popular with visitors.

At first, Scott Joplin stayed with the family of Arthur Marshall, a 13-year-old boy who later became one of Scott Joplin's students and a ragtime composer in his own right.

Scott Joplin performed in the Queen City Cornet Band and his own six-piece dance orchestra.

Scott Joplin completed his first published rag, "Original Rags" in 1897, the same year that the first ragtime work appeared in print, the "Mississippi Rag" by William Krell.

Scott Joplin did not work as a pianist in the saloons in St Louis, which was usually a major source of income for musicians, as he was "probably outclassed by the competition" and was, according to Stark's son, "a mediocre pianist".

Biographer Berlin speculated that by 1903 Scott Joplin was already showing early signs of syphilis, which reduced his coordination and "pianistic skills".

In June 1904, Scott Joplin married Freddie Alexander of Little Rock, Arkansas, the young woman to whom he had dedicated "The Chrysanthemum".

Scott Joplin died on September 10,1904, of complications resulting from a cold, ten weeks after their wedding.

In 1907, Scott Joplin moved to New York City, which he believed was the best place to find a producer for a new opera.

In 1911, unable to find a publisher, Scott Joplin undertook the financial burden of publishing Treemonisha himself in piano-vocal format.

Scott Joplin's grave, located at St Michael's Cemetery in East Elmhurst was finally given a marker in 1974, the year The Sting, which showcased his music, won Best Picture at the Oscars.

Scott Joplin used the Maple Leaf Rag as inspiration for subsequent works, such as The Cascades in 1903, Leola in 1905, Gladiolus Rag in 1907, and Sugar Cane Rag in 1908.

Scott Joplin wrote both the score and the libretto for the opera, which largely follows the form of European opera with many conventional arias, ensembles and choruses.

However, the son of publisher John Stark stated that Scott Joplin was a rather mediocre pianist and that he composed on paper, rather than at the piano.

Scott Joplin's ragtime expressed the intensity and energy of a modern urban America.

Scott Joplin had little in common with the fast and flashy school of ragtime that grew up after him.

Scott Joplin did for the rag what Chopin did for the mazurka.

Scott Joplin's style ranged from tones of torment to stunning serenades that incorporated the bolero and the tango.

Composer and actor Max Morath found it striking that the vast majority of Scott Joplin's work did not enjoy the popularity of the "Maple Leaf Rag", because while the compositions were of increasing lyrical beauty and delicate syncopation, they remained obscure and unheralded during his life.

Recordings of Joplin compositions were released by Tommy Dorsey in 1936, Jelly Roll Morton in 1939, and J Russel Robinson in 1947.

Scott Joplin did a tour in 1974, which included appearances on BBC Television and a sell-out concert at London's Royal Festival Hall.

Vera Brodsky Lawrence of the New York Public Library published a two-volume set of Joplin works in June 1971, titled The Collected Works of Scott Joplin, stimulating a wider interest in the performance of Joplin's music.

In mid-February 1973 under the direction of Gunther Schuller, the New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble recorded an album of Scott Joplin's rags taken from the period collection Standard High-Class Rags titled Scott Joplin: The Red Back Book.

Schonberg remarked in February 1972 that the "Scott Joplin Renaissance" was in full swing and still growing.

Copyright attorney Alvin Deutsch worked with Vera Brodsky Lawrence to make sure the Scott Joplin estate owned the rights to his work.

The home Scott Joplin rented in St Louis from 1900 to 1903 was recognized as a National Historic Landmark in 1976 and was saved from destruction by the local African American community.