Rose Leaf Rag

At a glance

• What it isa ragtime piece for solo piano, in C major.
• Who and whenwritten by Scott Joplin (1868–1917) and published in 1907.
• What to listen forthe steady walk of the left hand, the right hand slipping off the beat, and the moments when a new section begins.

Listen for

• The left hand's walkin a rag the left hand usually alternates a low note and a chord, stepping evenly in two with an oom-pah motion. That walk has to stay steady for the right hand's off-beats to come through clearly.
• Right-hand syncopationsyncopation means sounding a note just before the strong beat, so the rhythm slips past it. Listen for the notes that jump in half a step early instead of landing squarely on the beat.
• When the section changes: classic rags are usually built from several sections that follow one another and repeat. Notice how the height of the melody or the mood shifts when a new section comes in.

When it was written

Ragtime is piano music that grew up among African American musicians in the late nineteenth century. Laying syncopation over the even frame of the march, it sold widely as sheet music and became a craze. This was before a radio sat in every home, so people bought new rags and played them at their own pianos.

Joplin grew up in Texas and as a young man travelled the Midwest playing piano. In the 1890s he lived in Sedalia, Missouri, and in 1899 he made his name with the Maple Leaf Rag. In 1902 he published The Entertainer.

Around 1907 Joplin moved to New York, right about the time this piece appeared. The next year, 1908, he published School of Ragtime, a set of exercises for players. He also poured himself into his opera Treemonisha, publishing the score at his own expense in 1911. He never saw it properly staged in his lifetime.

Joplin died in New York in 1917, as popular taste was turning toward jazz. His music found a wide audience again when it was used in the 1973 film The Sting, and in 1976 he was awarded a special Pulitzer Prize.