Maple Leaf Rag

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The "Maple Leaf Rag" is associated with the city of Sedalia, Missouri, although there is no record of Joplin having a permanent residence there before 1904. Joplin arrived in Sedalia in 1894 as a touring musician and stayed with the family of Arthur Marshall, who later became one of Joplin's students and a ragtime composer in his own right. Joplin played as a solo musician at dances and at the major black clubs in Sedalia, among them the "Maple Leaf Club". It is possible that the rag was named after the Maple Leaf Club, although there is no direct evidence to prove the link, and there were probably many other possible sources for the name in and around Sedalia at the time.

Although there were hundreds of rags in print by the time of the "Maple Leaf Rag's" publication, Joplin was not far behind. His first published rag was "Original Rags" (March 1899). The "Maple Leaf Rag" was already known in Sedalia prior to its publication in 1899; composer and pianist Brun Campbell claimed to have seen the manuscript of the work in or around 1898. Prior to its publication, Joplin anticipated that the piece would be a success—he told Arthur Marshall that "The Maple Leaf will make me the king of ragtime composers".

The exact circumstances which led to publication of the "Maple Leaf Rag" are unknown, and there are versions of the event which contradict each other. After approaching several publishers, Joplin signed a contract with John Stillwell Stark on August 10, 1899 for a royalty of one cent ($0.39 in 2025) on all sales of the rag, with a minimum sales price of 25 cents($9.68 in 2025). The "Maple Leaf Rag" was published between August 10 and September 20, 1899, when the United States Copyright Office received two copies of the score. It was reissued in 1900 or 1901 with a new cover showing a green maple leaf and a photograph of Joplin. In 1903, Stark issued a "Maple Leaf Rag Song", an arrangement of Joplin's music with words by Sydney Brown.

Structure

The "Maple Leaf Rag" is a multi-strain ragtime march with athletic bass lines and offbeat melodies. Each of the four parts features a recurring theme and a striding bass line with copious seventh chords. The piece may be considered the "archetypal rag" due to its influence on the genre; its structure was the basis for many other rags, including "Sensation" by Joseph Lamb.

It is more carefully constructed than almost all the previous rags, and the syncopations, especially in the transition between the first and second strain, were novel at the time.

Generally, the "Maple Leaf Rag" is considered moderately difficult to play; a pianist must have very good coordination in the left hand to perform it successfully, particularly for the trio, which involves leaps of two octaves. When it was published, it was considered significantly more difficult than the average Tin Pan Alley and early ragtime sheet music common at the time.

"Gladiolus Rag," a later composition by Joplin, is a developed variant of the "Maple Leaf Rag" showcasing Joplin's increasing musical sophistication, and is usually played at a somewhat slower tempo. In addition, the first strains of Joplin's "The Cascades," "The Sycamore," "Leola," and "Sugar Cane" are modeled on the structure Joplin created for the first strain of "Maple Leaf Rag."

The composition starts in the key of A♭ major and changes to D♭ major during the first part of the trio, then modulates back to A♭ major.

Lyrics

In 1903, Stark issued a "Maple Leaf Rag Song", an arrangement of Joplin's music with words by Sydney Brown. Brown's lyrics tell the story of a poor man from Accomack County, Virginia, who stumbles into a ballroom where, in spite of his anxiety over the state of his appearance, he manages to wow the crowd with the Maple Leaf Rag. While the men are jealous of his dancing abilities and draw their razors, the women love him, and the "finest belle" sends for a carriage and the two of them ride away.

Modern ragtime composer Ron O'Dell has commented that the song has characteristics in common with rap, such as the lyrical themes, the lyrics being written in the African American Vernacular English of the time, and the fact that the lyrics are sung over the least melodic strain of the music.

Popularity and legacy

There have been many claims about the sales of the "Maple Leaf Rag", for example that 1 million copies of the sheet music were sold in the composer's lifetime, making Scott Joplin the first musician to sell 1 million copies of a piece of instrumental music. Joplin's first biographer Rudi Blesh wrote that during its first six months the piece sold 75,000 copies, and became "the first great instrumental sheet music hit in America". However, research by Joplin's later biographer Edward A. Berlin demonstrated that this was not the case; the initial print-run of 400 took one year to sell, and under the terms of Joplin's contract with a one-cent royalty would have given Joplin an income of $4, or approximately $150 in 2025. Later sales were steady and would have given Joplin an income which would have covered his expenses; in 1909 estimated sales would have given him an income of $600 annually (approximately $21,000 in 2025).

In addition to sales of sheet music, it was also popular in orchestrations for dance bands and brass bands for years. Joplin failed to repeat the success of Maple Leaf Rag, with none of his other famous rags (such as "The Entertainer") garnering as much popularity as the Maple Leaf Rag did. The royalties earned by the sheet music sales did provide Joplin with a steady income for the rest of his life, however.

Soon after the publication of the "Maple Leaf Rag", the earliest recordings of the rag took place; band leader Wilbur Sweatman recorded it onto phonograph cylinder a year later, but there are no known copies which have survived. The earliest surviving record of the rag comes from the second known recording of the rag by the United States Marine Band from 1906.

While Joplin never made an audio recording, his playing is preserved on seven piano rolls for use in mechanical player pianos. All seven were made in 1916. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin made these recordings he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis, the disease that took his life in 1917. The recording of "Maple Leaf Rag", on the Aeolian Uni-Record label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "shocking ... disorganized and completely distressing to hear". Berlin notes that the "Maple Leaf Rag" roll was "painfully bad" and likely to be the truest record of Joplin's playing at the time. The roll, however, does not reflect his abilities earlier in life.