Eugenia

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for piano.
• Who, whenpublished by Scott Joplin around 1905–1906.
• What to listen forthe way the even beat of the left hand locks with the syncopation of the right, and the moments when the melody changes.

Listen for

• Two hands in conversation: the left hand alternates a low note and a chord to keep the 'oom-pah' beat, while the right hand strikes between the beats and leans forward. Follow that mismatch, two hands putting their weight in different places.
• Repeatsa classic rag usually plays each section twice before moving on. When the same melody comes back the second time, notice whether it sticks in your ear more than the first.
• New sectionsbecause the form strings together several sections of around sixteen bars, there are places in the middle where the mood shifts. Finding them is part of the fun.

When it was written

In early twentieth-century America ragtime was a huge craze. There was no radio, so people bought rag sheet music and played it on the piano at home, and music publishing became a big business. Ragtime had first arisen among African American musicians.

Joplin was born in Texas and travelled from town to town playing piano. After making his name with Maple Leaf Rag in 1899 he kept publishing new rags year after year, and Eugenia is one of them. He dreamed not only of piano pieces but of large works such as opera.

Joplin died in New York in 1917. In 1916 he had also left his own playing on piano rolls, the perforated paper scrolls used by player pianos. His music was forgotten for a while, then loved widely again in the 1970s.