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Maple Leaf Rag

Scott Joplin

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This pianola roll version of the "Maple leaf Rag" was actually made from the playing of Scott Joplin in 1916.

Scott Joplin (c. 1867 – April 1, 1917) was an American composer and pianist. He achieved fame for his unique ragtime compositions, and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his brief career, Joplin wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag.

He was born into a musical African-American family of laborers in eastern Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. During the late 1880s he travelled around the American South as an itinerant musician, and went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893 which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897.

Publication of his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame and had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life with royalties of one cent per sale, equivalent to 26 cents per sale in current value. During his lifetime, Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems, which contributed to the loss of his first opera, "A Guest Of Honor." He continued to write Ragtime compositions, and moved to New York in 1907. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form that made him famous without much monetary success. His second opera, "Treemonisha," was also not received well at its only partially staged performance in 1915. The great composer died of tertiary syphilis in 1917.

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