Scott Joplin's most popular ragtime piece is lively and energetic and would be a suitable encore for the adventurous bass quartet. There are effective musical and technical challenges for each player but nothing too taxing. A fun and lively piece to enjoy!

"The parts are well written and the main tunes are nicely distributed throughout the quartet. David Heyes has done an admirable job on this arrangement of a popular crowd pleaser, especially as the tune is not ideally suited to the double bass." (Bass News)

Performance Level: 7;8

Recital Music also publish Joplin's Original Rags [RM262] and Elite Syncopations [RM265], both arranged for double bass quartet by David Heyes.

Scott Joplin, the "King of Ragtime" music, was born near Linden, Texas on November 24, 1868 and moved with his family to Texarkana at the age of about seven. Even at this early age, Joplin demonstrated his extraordinary talent for music. Encouraged by his parents, he was already proficient on the banjo, and was beginning to play the piano and by the age of eleven, and taught by Julius Weiss, he was studying musical theory.

After several years as pianist, playing in saloons and brothels throughout the Midwest, he settled in St. Louis about 1890. There he studied and led in the development of a music genre now known as ragtime - a blend of European classical styles combined with African American harmony and rhythm.

In the late 1890s, Joplin worked at the Maple Leaf Club in Sedalia, which provided the title for his best known composition, the Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899. This was followed a few years later by The Entertainer, another of his best known compositions. In 1911, Joplin moved to New York City, where he devoted his energies to the production of his operatic work, Treemonisha, the first grand opera composed by an African American. After suffering deteriorating health due to syphilis that he contracted some years earlier, Joplin died on April 1, 1917 in Manhattan State Hospital.

Although Joplin's music was popular and he received modest recompense during his lifetime, he did not receive recognition as a serious composer for more than fifty years after his death. In 1973 his music was featured in the motion picture, The Sting, which won and Academy Award for its film score and three years later Joplin's opera Treemonisha won the coveted Pulitzer Prize.