Scott Joplin (November 24, 1868 – April 1, 1917) was an African American composer and pianist, born near Texarkana, Texas, into the first post-slavery generation - his father an ex-slave and his mother a freeborn woman. He would achieve fame for his unique ragtime compositions, and would later be dubbed the "King of Ragtime." During his brief career, he wrote forty-four original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas, with one of his first pieces, the Maple Leaf Rag, becoming ragtime's first and most influential hit, and remaining so for a century.
He was blessed with an amazing ability to improvise at the piano, and was able to enlarge his talents with the music he heard around him, which was rich with the sounds of gospel hymns and spirituals, dance music, plantation songs, syncopated rhythms, blues, and choruses. After studying music with several local teachers, his talent was noticed by a German immigrant music teacher, Julius Weiss, who chose to give the 11 year old boy lessons free of charge. He was taught music theory, keyboard technique, and an appreciation of various European music styles, such as folk and opera.
He spent his final years, before his early death at age 48, working on his second opera, Treemonisha. This was written, according to opera historian Elise Kirk, to be a "timeless story" about a young black "heroine of the spirit who leads her people from superstition and darkness to salvation and enlightenment." It was a failure in its first concert performance in 1915, but was rediscovered and premiered in 1972. Joplin's music returned to popularity in the 1970s with the Academy award-winning movie The Sting, which featured several of his compositions, such as The Entertainer. Joplin was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1976.
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066 Joplin Bethena A Concerto Waltz