March Majestic

At a glance

• What it isa march for piano, in G major.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin and published in 1902.
• What to listen forthe even marching step, the moments when one section gives way to the next, and how it resembles a rag and how it doesn't.

Listen for

• The marching stepa march usually moves in a steady one-two, one-two that you could walk to. Listen for how the left hand holds that step in place.
• Several sectionsmarches are usually built from several short sections that follow one another and repeat, often with a gentler section called the trio coming later on. Listen for how the mood shifts when a new section arrives.
• Set it beside a ragplay The Entertainer, from the same year, right after it. Notice how far the right hand slips off the beat in each, and which one walks straighter. The difference between the two kinds of music starts to come through.

When it was written

In late nineteenth-century America, marches were hugely popular. Bands played them in streets and parks, and people bought piano sheet music to play them at home. Ragtime grew up on exactly this frame, laying syncopated rhythm over the shape of the march. Syncopation means shifting the weight away from the beat where you expect it, so the accent lands somewhere unexpected.

Joplin was born in Texas around 1868, and in the 1890s he worked as a pianist based mainly in Sedalia, Missouri. He made his name in 1899 with the Maple Leaf Rag, then moved to St. Louis. Even after rags made him famous, he did not stay with rags alone. In 1911 he published his opera Treemonisha at his own expense.

Joplin died in New York in 1917. His music was forgotten for a while, then loved widely again after it was used in the 1973 film The Sting, and in 1976 he received a special Pulitzer Prize.