The Entertainer (rag)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

For other songs, see The Entertainer (disambiguation).
The Entertainer
by Scott Joplin
The front cover of "The Entertainer"'s sheet music. It has a green background and in the center is a red ink drawing of a caricatured African-American performer on stage in top hat and tails
First edition cover of "The Entertainer"
FormRagtime, two step
Published1902; 122 years ago (1902)
PublisherJohn Stark & Son
DurationTypically 3:53
Live performance of "The Entertainer" in 2007

"The Entertainer" is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin.[1]

It was sold first as sheet music by John Stark & Son of St. Louis, Missouri,[2] and in the 1910s as piano rolls that would play on player pianos.[1] The first recording was by blues and ragtime musicians the Blue Boys in 1928, played on mandolin and guitar.[1]

As one of the classics of ragtime, it returned to international prominence as part of the ragtime revival in the 1970s, when it was used as the theme music for the 1973 Oscar-winning film The Sting. Composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch's adaptation reached No. 3 on the Billboard pop chart and spent a week at No. 1 on the easy listening chart in 1974.[3] The Sting was set in the 1930s, a full generation after the end of ragtime's mainstream popularity, thus giving the inaccurate impression that ragtime music was popular at that time.

The Recording Industry Association of America ranked it at No. 10 on its "Songs of the Century" list.[1]

Music

"The Entertainer" is subtitled "A Rag Time Two Step", which was a form of dance popular until about 1911, and a style which was common among rags written at the time.

Its structure is: Intro–AA–BB–A–CC–Intro2–DD.[2]

It is primarily set in the key of C major; however, for the C section (commonly referred to as the "Trio"), it modulates to F major, then shifts back to C major for the D section. The B section contains an indication that the melody is to be played an octave higher on the repeat.

In the June 7, 1903,

Monroe H. Rosenfeld described "The Entertainer" as "the best and most euphonious" of Joplin's compositions to that point. "It is a jingling work of a very original character, embracing various strains of a retentive character which set the foot in spontaneous action and leave an indelible imprint on the tympanum".[2] Joplin may have performed the piece at a fundraiser in Parsons, Kansas, on April 27, 1904.[4]

Suggested by the rag's dedication to "James Brown and his Mandolin Club", author Rudi Blesh wrote that "some of the melodies recall the pluckings and the fast tremolos of the little steel-stringed plectrum instruments".[5] Stark issued an arrangement of the piece for two mandolins and a guitar.[2]

Publication

The copyright on "The Entertainer" was registered December 29, 1902, along with two other Joplin rags, "A Breeze from Alabama" and "Elite Syncopations", all three of which were published by Stark.[2] The centerpiece of the original cover art featured a minstrel show caricature of a black man in formal attire on a theater stage.[citation needed]

Popularity and legacy

In November 1970,

New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disk, Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival".[10]

ice cream trucks to attract attention.[15]

See also

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 9781442254497
    .
  2. ^
    ISBN 0-486-25922-6
    .
  3. ISBN 0-89820-149-7
    .
  4. ^ Unknown (April 27, 1904). ""Scott Joplin's Musicale"". Evening Herald (Parsons, Kansas). Vol. 12, no. 57. W.C. Moore. Retrieved August 15, 2022.
  5. ^ Rudi Blesh, p. xxiv, "Scott Joplin: Black-American Classicist", Introduction to Scott Joplin Collected Piano Works, New York Public Library, 1981
  6. ^ "Scott Joplin Piano Rags Nonesuch Records CD (w/bonus tracks)". Nonesuch.com. Retrieved March 19, 2009.
  7. ^ "Nonesuch Records". Nonesuch.com. Retrieved March 19, 2009.
  8. ^ Billboard 1974a, p. 61.
  9. ^ a b LA Times n.d.
  10. ^ Rich 1979.
  11. ^ "Charis Music Group, compilation of cue sheets from the American Top 40 radio Show" (PDF). Retrieved September 5, 2009.
  12. ^ Billboard 1974b, p. 64.
  13. ^ Kronenberger, John (August 11, 1974). "The Ragtime Revival—A Belated Ode to Composer Scott". The New York Times.
  14. ^ Record World Magazine. July 1974, quoted in: Berlin, Edward A. (1996). King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era, p. 251.
  15. ^ Neely, Daniel Tannehill (Spring 2005). "Soft Serve: Charting the aural promise of ice cream truck music" (PDF). Esopus (4). New York City. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 5, 2009.

Sources

External links

Wikisource has original text related to this article:
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Entertainer_(rag)&oldid=1174862414"