Augustan Club Waltz

At a glance

• What it isa waltz for piano. A waltz is a dance that turns in three beats.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin and published in 1901.
• What to listen forthe 'oom-pah-pah' of three beats in the left hand, and the melodies that change one after another above it.

Listen for

• The three-beat stepin a piano waltz the left hand usually strikes a low note on the first beat and lays light chords on the second and third. Picture dancers slowly turning to that step.
• Melodies in a rowpiano waltzes of this period are usually built from several short melodies that follow one another and repeat. Listen for how the brightness and weight change when a new melody comes in.
• A ragtime composer's hands: in Joplin's rags the right hand leaps in between the beats. Compare for yourself whether you hear that kind of rhythmic play in this waltz, or whether it flows evenly.

When it was written

After the Maple Leaf Rag came out in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1899, it sold steadily for years and made Joplin's name. Around 1901 Joplin moved to the larger city of St. Louis and devoted himself to composing. In the same year he also published the rag The Easy Winners.

In the American sheet-music market of the time, waltzes and marches were loved alongside ragtime. With no radio, people bought sheet music and enjoyed new pieces at the piano at home. Joplin wrote dances of these different kinds, not only rags, and in 1905 he published a concert waltz, Bethena.

Joplin regarded ragtime as serious music. He died in New York in 1917. His music was forgotten for a while, then came to be widely loved again in the 1970s.