Bethena
Bethena | |
---|---|
by Scott Joplin | |
Genre | Ragtime |
Form | Concert waltz |
Published | 1905 |
Publisher | T. Bahnsen Piano Manufacturing Co. St. Louis Mo. |
Instrument: Solo piano |
"Bethena, A Concert Waltz" (copyright registered March 6, 1905) is a composition by Scott Joplin. It was the first Joplin work since his wife Freddie's death on September 10, 1904, of pneumonia, ten weeks after their wedding. At the time the composer had significant financial problems; the work did not sell successfully at the time of publication and was soon neglected and forgotten. It was rediscovered as a result of the Joplin revival in the 1970s and has received acclaim from Joplin's biographers and other critics. The piece combines two different styles of music, the classical waltz and the rag, and has been seen as demonstrating Joplin's excellence as a classical composer. The work has been described as "an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of Ragtime Waltzes",[1] a "masterpiece",[2] and "Joplin's finest waltz".[3]
Background and composition
Joplin's principal claim to fame was the publication in 1899 of the
After divorce from his first wife Belle—a "disastrous" relationship underscored by the loss of their infant daughter—Joplin married his 19-year-old second wife Freddie in June 1904. He had dedicated to her his rag The Chrysanthemum which was published in that year. She died on 10 September 1904 of pneumonia ten weeks after their wedding.[7][8][9] Joplin's whereabouts are unknown from that point until early 1905, when he returned to St. Louis, Missouri where some of Joplin's known associates, such as pianist Louis Chauvin and musician Joe Jordan, still lived.[10] On 6 March, Joplin registered the copyright of Bethena, A Concert Waltz, and dedicated the work to the otherwise little-known "Mr. and Mrs. Dan E. Davenport of St. Louis Mo".[7] The copyright date is significant because not all Joplin works were registered for copyright purposes and there is a lack of detail about many aspects of Joplin's life, including when many of the pieces were composed.[11][12]
Biographer
The work was published by the "T. Bahnsen Piano Manufacturing Company, St. Louis", a firm which only published two other Joplin compositions. Berlin speculates that at this point in his career, despite the fame brought by the Maple Leaf Rag, Joplin was unable to arrange favorable terms with publishers; for example Joplin announced in July 1905 the completion of the song "You Stand Good with Me, Babe" which was never published, and no copies of the song have ever been found.[14] Bethena was released at a difficult time for Joplin, both emotionally and financially; most of the compositions released in the two and a half years since the death of Freddie had been by little-known and insignificant publishers, were largely unnoticed at the time of publication and, except for Bethena, were not "quality Joplin". Joplin's finances remained in an unsatisfactory state and he wrote several works for hire.[15]
Form
- Introduction A BB A CC DD EE A Coda
Bethena has five musical
The piece is notated in 3/4 time with the main theme repeated three times in the work as well as in the introduction and the coda. The "sadly poignant",[7] "graceful, wistful" and tenderly nostalgic[19] mood is partly dictated by this main theme, which starts with the melody note A harmonised against a G major chord thus creating a dissonance. In the next measure the theme is set against a different harmony before Joplin creates variations. There are variants of the theme in the "haunting" B minor key of the D strain and in the E strain's D major key which "brightens the mood".[19][21][22]
Joplin combines the waltz' "oom-pa-pah" rhythm and its conventionally accented three
The left hand follows the standard approach of classical
Critical reception
It is not clear what the composition's reception was at the time, and the piece's publication by a company which had little previous experience of this endeavour indicate that there was little positive impact on the composer's financial problems. Joplin wanted to be considered as a serious artist, and spoke of his preference for "classical music". Compositions such as Bethena, A Concert Waltz and his operas A Guest of Honor and Treemonisha indicate that he was trying to be taken seriously as a composer.[26] Like many of his other works, Bethena was largely forgotten after Joplin's death from syphilis in 1917. The slow revival and re-discovery of Ragtime and Joplin started in the 1940s, although it concentrated on the rags such as the Maple Leaf Rag, rather than Bethena.
The composition was featured on the soundtrack to the 2008 Hollywood film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.[32] The performance of the composition by the pianist Randy Kerber was described by one critic on National Public Radio as "letting the inherent wistfulness of the music emerge", with the piece "perfectly suited" to the movie as it was a "tender and heartfelt remembrance of a love lost".[33]
Joplin biographer Edward A. Berlin believed that Bethena was "an enchantingly beautiful piece that is among the greatest of ragtime waltzes" because of the repeated main theme in G major, the contrapuntal passages, and the harmonies.[1] Another biographer, Rudi Blesh, wrote that the work was a "masterpiece", thanks to its rhythmic variations, the beauty of each strain's melodies and the richly scored harmony, especially when considered in comparison to the unsyncopated light salon style of Binks Waltz published in the same year.[2] In another publication, Blesh described the work as "Joplin's finest waltz".[3]
Other critics have praised the piece, with the author of a survey of American music noting that the rhythms of the waltz and ragtime combined to produce an "ingenious and delightful example of such a stylistic accommodation", showing that the composer was an "adventurous classicist par excellence" because he was able to combine tradition and innovation in a consistently inventive way.[22] Another critic, the arranger of Joplin's music for solo Guitar, wrote that Bethena displayed Joplin's characteristic syncopated style in a "seductive" manner even in the waltz's 3/4 time signature.[18]
See also
References
- ^ a b c Berlin (1996), p. 149.
- ^ a b Blesh & Janis (1950), p. 77.
- ^ a b Blesh (1981), p. xxiii.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 57–58.
- ^ Jasen & Jones (2002), p. 21.
- ^ a b "Classical Net". Retrieved 2009-03-20.
- ^ a b c d Berlin (1996), p. 146.
- ^ "A Biography of Scott Joplin". Archived from the original on 2007-02-24. Retrieved 2009-03-17.
- ^ Jasen & Jones (2002), p. 22.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 145.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 5.
- ^ Index p. 325, Scott Joplin Complete Piano Works, New York Public Library, 1981.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 147.
- ^ Berlin (1996), pp. 149–150.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 161.
- ^ a b c Magee (1998), p. 400.
- ^ a b Blesh & Janis (1950), p. 76.
- ^ a b Joplin & De Chiaro (2001), p. 4.
- ^ a b c d e "Sibelius music - notes about Bethena, arranged for String Quartet". Sibelius Music. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- ^ "Dictionary.com". Retrieved 2009-04-30.
- ^ a b c Berlin (1996), p. 148.
- ^ a b Chase (1992), p. 418.
- ^ Watson, Sonny. "Streetswing.com". Retrieved 2009-09-19.
- ^ a b Scivales (2005), p. unknown.
- ^ Miller (2005), p. 195.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 184, 149.
- ^ "Nonesuch Records". Retrieved 2009-03-19.
- ^ Jane Keefer (11 Nov 2008). "Folk Music Performer Index". Folk Music - An Index to Recorded Resources. Retrieved 30 May 2010.
- ^ Berlin (1996), p. 244, 249–251.
- ^ Billboard magazine 1974, p. 61
- ^ New York Magazine, December 24, 1979, p. 81.
- ^ "The soundtrack listing for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button". IMDB.com. Retrieved 2009-06-28.
- ^ Silver, Marc (2008-12-16). "NPR Music, Song of the Day". NPR Music. Retrieved 2009-06-28.
Bibliography
- ISBN 0-19-510108-1.
- "Best Selling Classical LPs" (PDF). Billboard. New York: Billboard Publications Inc. 28 September 1974. p. 61.
- ISBN 0-87104-272-X.
- Blesh, Rudi; Janis, Harriet (2007) [1950]. They All Played Ragtime: The True Story of an American Music. Read Books. ISBN 978-1-4067-7326-2. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
- Chase, Gilbert (1992). America's Music. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0-252-06275-2. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
America's Music.
- Jasen, David A.; Jones, Gordon Gene (2002). Black Bottom Stomp. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-93641-1. Retrieved 2009-04-17.
- Joplin, Scott; De Chiaro, Giovanni (2001). Complete Works of Scott Joplin for Guitar. Mel Bay. ISBN 0-7866-3279-8. Retrieved 2009-05-17.
- Magee, Jeffrey (1998). Nicholls, David (ed.). The Cambridge History of American Music (Illustrated ed.). Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-45429-8. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
- Miller, Michael (2005). The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory (2nd ed.). Alpha Books. ISBN 1-59257-437-8. Retrieved 2009-09-19.
- Scivales, Riccardo (2005). Jazz Piano, the Left Hand. Shacor, Inc. ISBN 1-929009-54-2. Archived from the originalon 2012-11-07. Retrieved 2009-04-30.
- "SibeliusMusic concert notes for Bethena (1905)". Retrieved 2009-04-27.[permanent dead link]
External links
- Copy of the original edition score
- "Bethena" - from the Mutopia Project; musical score and MIDI file
- Youtube video of "Bethena" being played.