His performances so impressed several businessmen in Syracuse that they issued his first two publications, the songs Please Say You Will and A picture of Her Face. When not traveling he worked in Sedalia as a pianist playing at various events and sites. He also taught several of the local young musicians in town, most notably Scott Hayden and Arthur Marshall whom he later wrote collaborative rags.
In 1898, Joplin tried to publish his first two piano rags, but succeeded in selling only original rags. This period of publication was not good as he was forced to share credit with a staff arranger. Before Joplin published his next rag he obtained the assistance of a young lawyer. In August 1899, they contracted with Sedalia music store owner a publisher, John Stark to publish The Maple Leaf.
Joplin published Nonpareil, Fig Leaf Rag, and Heliotrope Bouquet with Stark in 1907, but sought out new publishers for his other works in 1907, Searchlight Rag and Gladiolus Rag with Joseph W. Stern, and Rose Leaf Rag. In 1908 he self-published his ragtime manual School of Ragtime, but then turned it over to Stark and others to market it. His most significant new publisher became Seminary Music. Seminary issued Joplin’s Sugar Cane and Pine Apple Rag in 1908, and in 1909 Wall Street Rag, Solace, Pleasant Moments, Country Club, Euphonic Sounds, and Paragon Rag. The last was dedicated to the C.V.B.A., the Colored Vaudeville Benevolent Association, an organization that he had just joined and with which he would be active during the next few years.
Joplin set about to arrange a performance of the opera, but he was unsuccessful. Through the next four years he announced several full productions but none were realized. His futile efforts to have his operas produced detracted from his other creative work. Stark published Felicity Rag in 1911 and Kismet Rag in 1913, two works that Joplin had composed in collaboration with Scott Hayden a decade earlier. In 1912, Stern published Scott Joplin’s New Rag. In 1913, Joplin formed, with his new wife Lottie, his own publishing company, and they issued Magnetic Rag in 1914. During the next two years, Joplin composed several new rags and songs, a vaudeville act, a musical, a symphony, and a piano concerto, but none of these were published and the manuscripts have been lost. By 1916, Joplin was experiencing the devastating physical and mental effects of tertiary syphilis. By mid-January 1917, he had to be hospitalized, and was soon transferred to a mental institution where he died on April 1, 1917.
In the 1970s as new recordings of Joplin’s music, produced for the first time on classical labels, set classical sales records. At the same time, the notated music became available through reprinted collections, most notably a two-volume set issued by the New York Public Library, and Treemonisha was successfully staged, finally reaching Broadway. This quickly growing presence inspired a film director to use Joplin’s music in his film The Sting, which became very popular and brought Joplin to the notice of the mass public. The result was unique in music history, led by music that Joplin had composed more than a half-century earlier, ragtime became a current and universally loved style. In recognition of his noteworthy achievements, the Pulitzer Committee in 1976 issued a posthumous award for Scott Joplin’s contribution to American music.
Works Cited
Berlin, A. (1995) King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era. Chicago: Oxford University Press
Sabir, C. (2000) Scott Joplin the King of Ragtime: The King of Ragtime (Journey to Freedom). Dallas: Child's World
Gammond, P. (1977) Scott Joplin and the Ragtime Era. New York: St Martins Press
