# Should ragtime be considered a form of classical?



## Guest

A few years ago, a lady at work was telling me about her daughter doing piano recitals and mentioned among the obligatory Beethoven and Debussy pieces, Scott Joplin. A little after that, I saw a photo somewhere showing alabaster busts of the great classical composers--the scowling Beethoven and Mozart with the almost beguiling hint of smile, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Chopin...and, strangely enough, Joplin.

There was, in fact, two types of ragtime--heavy rags and light rags. Joplin spearheaded a push in his day to turn ragtime into a respected art form. He combined rags with classical music to produce a more genteel rag. This was the heavy rag. Joplin was certainly not alone in this endeavor as many black ragtime pianists were pushing heavy rags as a plea from society for respect. The public, however, largely driven by the demands of white consumers, wanted light rags. As the name implies, these rags were of a lighter, more humorous nature. The public saw them as a "true negro musical expression" but it was mostly white. In fact, black ragtimers could generally listen to a ragtime piece and know if the author was black or not because white rags often lacked the complexity that black rags strove for.

Unfortunately, the whole issue was so socio-politically charged that a lot of good music got pushed away and forgotten. Today, we are not even certain how much ragtime has been lost. A perfectly good piece would get shunned because some camp or other stigmatized it as being too white or too black. There were lots of great light and heavy rags. Seems like a new piece gets rediscovered every few years. The issue wasn't simply race or class oriented either.

Gender was another problem. One of the things about the ragtime era that most people don't know today is that it was largely female-driven. There were a huge number of very active female ragtime authors: Mamie Gunn, Euday Bowman, Hattie Nevada, Irene Cozad, Elsie Janis, Hanna Rion, Irene Giblin, Florence Wood, Mary Walsh, Margaret Woodin, Charlotte Blake, Bessie Powell, Sadie Koninsky, Emma Harte, Myrtle Hoy, Abbie Ford, Annie Ford McKnight, Effie Kamman, Agnes Melville, Dorothy Ingersoll Wahl, May Aufderheide, Mabel McKinley, Florence Wilson, Marian Davis, Cora Salisbury, Anna Hughes Carpenter, Julia Niebergall, Anita Owen, Winnifred Greenwood, Hortensia Weisman, Betty Morgan, Florence McPherran, Hattie Starr, Gladys Yelvington, May Summerbelle, Geraldine Dobyns, Maude Gilmore, Anna Held, Laura Schick King, Irene Franklin, Nellie Stokes, Camilla Shiele, Gertrude Colby, the Beaumont Sisters, Molly King, Pauline Story, Libbie Erickson, Luella Moore, Marie Louka, Gwendolyn Stevenson, Florence Cook, Alma Saunders, Mattie Harlburgess, Ruth Orndorff, Helen Eaton, Zema Randale, Mae Bell, May Irwin, Mamie Williams, Henrietta Belcher, Mattie Thompson, just to name a few. Even some of the sheet music with male names on them were written by women who couldn't find publishers because they were female so published under male pseudonyms (remember women couldn't vote during the ragtime era and wouldn't get the vote until 1920 whereas men of color had the vote--at least on paper--by 1870).









Charlotte Blake rag from my personal collection.









Elsie Janis was quite famous in her day as a ragtime performer but she wrote much of her own material as well as pieces for other performers. She was also an actress and a published novelist.





Elsie Janis from 1912. This would be an example of a light rag. She died in 1956 at age 67 like most ragtimers--completely forgotten. Today, however, there is a revived interest in this remarkable lady.

Many of the ragtime writers and musicians were classically trained. Joplin was trained by a German music teacher when he was just a lad and had a great love for classical music all his life, especially the operas of Wagner. But one can hear snatches of Mozart, Bach, Tchaikovsky and the like cropping up in his music. Some of this has been hidden because of modern misinterpretation. For a while, "Mapleleaf Rag" was always played fast with a light rag sensibility. But ever since Jeremy Rifkin, artists who cover it now slow it down and play it in a more stately manner as Joplin himself had always intended the piece to sound even writing on the sheet music "It is never right to play ragtime fast." Joplin, in fact, did refer to his rags as "American Negro Classical Music." Two modern treatments of Joplin's "Sugar Cane Rag" and "Pineapple Rag":











Some might regard these as classical guys stooping to pay tribute to a lesser form of music because blacks are so under represented in classical music but Joplin almost certainly wouldn't have had any objection to his pieces being played this way. Some of his pieces that we are used to hearing on piano were, in fact, written for string and horn bands. We cannot be certain that Joplin's pieces weren't played as above in his day at least occasionally. There was a European conductor who wanted Joplin to tour Europe but, as far as anyone knows, it never happened.

So what say you, reader? Is ragtime a form of classical?


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## Albert7

Yep, ragtime is definitely classical music to me.

Perhaps this example will highlight what I am trying to convey here:






And Joplin even composed an opera too:


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## hpowders

Is jazz a form of classical? Is rap a form of classical?


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## Guest

F. Joseph Lamb was a white ragtime writer who specialized in heavy rags. He admired Joplin a great deal and finally had a chance to meet him and play some of his rags. When Joplin heard Lamb's pieces, he clapped him on the shoulder and said, "That's a regular Negro rag." Which Lamb took as the highest compliment Joplin could have given him. Joplin got Lamb signed to the Stark publishing house.

Lamb did not hang out with other ragtime pianists so no one knew much about him. The black ragtimers all thought that Lamb was black because his pieces were so durned complex. Whites didn't write like that. In fact, NO ONE knew who Lamb was for decades. He would tell his daughter about the ragtime era and meeting Joplin and play his pieces for her and she would tell him that he needed to write book about that period before people forget. Lamb would just respond, "Oh, people don't want to hear about that old stuff anymore."

Some speculated that Lamb was just a pseudonym for Joplin but jazz critic, Rudy Blesh, disagreed. Lamb's style was markedly different. He started looking for Lamb's relatives and learned that Lamb was still alive and managed to track him down. When Lamb came to the door to see him, Blesh began telling him about this book he was writing about ragtime and wanted to interview him. Lamb stopped him and asked, "And how much is this going to cost me?"

Blesh's book _They All Played Ragtime_ was a watershed in America's rediscovery of ragtime.














F. Joseph Lamb died in 1960. Only 4 years after Blesh tracked him down. He was an invaluable about the ragtime era.


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## DiesIraeCX

Interesting thread, I'm not sure of the answer. The only time that I know of when "ragtime" is certainly considered classical is during the Finale of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonata, Op. 111! :tiphat:



> Mitsuko Uchida has remarked that this variation, to a modern ear, has a striking resemblance to cheerful boogie-woogie, and the closeness of it to jazz and ragtime, which were still eighty years into the future at the time, has often been pointed out. Jeremy Denk, for example, describes the second movement using terms like "proto-jazz" and "boogie-woogie"





> The Arietta, yet another set of variations, goes from gentle lyricism to delirious premonitions of ragtime: visionary music, handled by Mr. Schiff


 - Andras Schiff at Carnegie Hall, New York Times

*Start listening at 14:25! *






I'm sure KenOC will chime in soon with an example of how little known composer, Anton von Hiddlebert Himmenschmacher (c.1759 - who knows), actually wrote a full-blown ragtime piano piece a good thirteen years before Beethoven.


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## Albert7

hpowders said:


> Is jazz a form of classical? Is rap a form of classical?


I consider Public Enemy and its symphonic nature of their early albums with sonic complexity to be a form of electronic music and perhaps arguably classical music in a rather abstruse sense.


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## Guest

James Scott of Missouri was probably the most innovative ragtimer of the era. He greatly admired Joplin but was actually more innovative. Joplin recognized it and got Scott signed to Stark. Stark was not Scott's first publishing house, however. His first ragtime piece was published when he was only 17.

James Scott was largely self-taught on piano which is strange when we realize that his family did not own a piano. He had to practice anywhere he could find one and yet his prowess was unequaled. Finally, an experienced black pianist, named Coleman, gave teenaged Scott about 3 dozen lessons that involved reading. Scott became a proficient reader. He landed a job for a man that had a piano in the back stockroom and when he heard Scott playing once, he excitedly asked him, "Can you read?" Scott said he could and was promoted to head salesman plugging sheet music for customers.

This was when Scott got his pieces published. His innovation continued to evolve until the death of ragtime which occurred right around the time of Joplin's death--1917. By 1920, ragtime was done. Scott continued to compose but couldn't get a publisher anymore. He died at age 52. his room was littered with hundreds of ragtime pieces never published. No one knows what happened to them.


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## Guest

Albert7 said:


> Yep, ragtime is definitely classical music to me.
> 
> Perhaps this example will highlight what I am trying to convey here:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And Joplin even composed an opera too:


Joplin actually wrote at least two operas but one--_A Guest of Honor_--is lost. That was apparently a ragtime opera whereas _Treemonisha_ is not although it has a couple of raggy pieces--"A Real Slow Drag" which is the finale piece and "Aunt Dinah has Blowed the Horn". There is an unusual piece called "We Will Rest a While" because it is sung by field hands in what we now recognize as barbershop quartet harmonies. Joplin was trying to demonstrate the origin of the form. It started in the fields but moved into the barbershops because barbering was seen as an honest and honorable profession. So a lot of black men became barbers and would sing in those harmonies to entertain clients. In some areas, even white men went to the black barbershops for the conversation and song.

My two favorite pieces are Parson Alltalk's sermon "Good Advice" and "Prelude to Act III." I love how they break into call & response in "Good Advice" which I find just breathtaking. "Prelude" is very dynamic with great, delicate lines. The last phrase as the piece ends almost made me break into tears the first time I heard it.

We are not sure how many Joplin pieces are lost. Only one has been recovered over the years--"Silver Swan Rag"--which some think may be the last one he wrote.





Joplin wrote "Heliotrope" with a dying man named Louis Chauvin. Chauvin contracted syphilis and was in the terminal stages. Joplin wanted to get some of Chauvin's music down before he went. Chauvin was a brilliant pianist (as well as an expert singer and dancer) but couldn't read music so never wrote anything down. There was this thing he used to play that Joplin loved so he sought Chauvin out and they worked on it together. It was the last composition Chauvin would ever do. He died in 1908 at the ripe old age of 25.


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## Guest

DiesIraeVIX said:


> Interesting thread, I'm not sure of the answer. The only time that I know of when "ragtime" is certainly considered classical is during the Finale of Beethoven's 32 Piano Sonata, Op. 111! :tiphat:
> 
> - Andras Schiff at Carnegie Hall, New York Times
> 
> *Start listening at 14:25! *
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> I'm sure KenOC will chime in soon with an example of how little known composer, Anton von Hiddlebert Himmenschmacher (c.1759 - who knows), actually wrote a full-blown ragtime piano piece a good thirteen years before Beethoven.


Liszt and Chopin resorted to a bit of syncopation long before there was ragtime. While some say that just because it's syncopated doesn't make it ragtime, Eubie Blake disagreed. He said ALL syncopated music is ragtime. That would mean that ragtime was invented by European classical composers which really would make ragtime indisputably a form of classical. The Beethoven is, of course, quite lovely.


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## science

Because it is through-composed, composer-centric music, yes, I think we should consider it classical. 

However, the boundaries and definitions of the genres are mere products of arbitrary cultural history. There is no other reason that ragtime (or anything else) is classified as one thing or another thing.

At some point the label "classical" is going to lose its appeal. I think something like "art music" is coming next. That'll put jazz and classical under the same label, as well as eliminating some of the boundary problems. It'll create a massive new boundary problem, but that will be a cultural conversation we'll enjoy.


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## ArtMusic

I would be inclined to say "no".

Did great composers actively composer music this way? I think it is clear they did not.


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## GreenMamba

ArtMusic said:


> I would be inclined to say "no".
> 
> Did great composers actively composer music this way? I think it is clear they did not.


Scott Joplin did.


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## DiesIraeCX

Victor Redseal said:


> Liszt and Chopin resorted to a bit of syncopation long before there was ragtime. While some say that just because it's syncopated doesn't make it ragtime, Eubie Blake disagreed. He said ALL syncopated music is ragtime. That would mean that ragtime was invented by European classical composers which really would make ragtime indisputably a form of classical. The Beethoven is, of course, quite lovely.


Interesting. Beethoven wrote the 32nd piano sonata when both Liszt and Chopin were preteens, nonetheless, I'd like to hear Chopin's syncopated music, I'm a big fan of Chopin's music. I wonder if he was influenced by Beethoven in that regard. (I've read some people say he wasn't influenced by Beethoven, but that is demonstrably false, the "Funeral March" (Op. 26) and "Hammerklavier" (Op. 106) sonatas being two prime examples of his music that Chopin openly admired and learned from)


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## ArtMusic

GreenMamba said:


> Scott Joplin did.


Many other, most greats did not. Maybe they were not even aware or thought about it.


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## GreenMamba

ArtMusic said:


> Many other, most greats did not. Maybe they were not even aware or thought about it.


True, but I don't think you can define what's Classical on the basis of whether it was written by Great Classical Composers. It just begs the question.

Besides, can we not have new things withing Classical? Can electronic music ever be Classical? --- none of the old Greats wrote electronically.

(All this being said, I'm leaning toward "no" on the OP's question. I certainly do not think arguing that Ragtime is complex, interesting, entertaining, etc. makes it Classical.)


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> Many other, most greats did not. Maybe they were not even aware or thought about it.


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## Guest

Dvorak's "New World Symphony" was based in part on "Swing Low Sweet Chariot." When Dvorak came to New York in the early 1890s as head of the National Conservatory, his assistant was Harry Thacker Burleigh, a great choir singer.










Burleigh's grandfather had been born a slave who eventually bought his freedom. He sang the old plantation songs to young Burleigh who remembered them and sang them for Dvorak who loved them. Thanks to Dvorak, an usually high percentage of the student body at the National Conservatory was black. Dvorak taught his students to write their own melodies and then use Beethoven sonatas and the like to modulate and develop them.

He would ask Burleigh to sing some of the old songs for him and Burleigh noted that whenever he sang the minor 7th, Dvorak would stop him and ask if that was really how the slaves sang them. Once Burleigh sang an old spiritual he learned from his grandpa and Dvorak said delightedly, "Burleigh, that was as fine as a Beethoven piece!"

Burleigh and Dvorak worked out of the Tenderloin district where, strangely, Joplin would live a couple of decades later. Whether he knew about the work of these two men is not known by me but he was already doing something similar to them and the Tenderloin was apparently conducive to the endeavor. So this could be said to be the area that gave birth to jazz as an art music.


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## isorhythm

Yes, I'd say it's pretty clearly in the classical tradition.

Editing to elaborate a little: I'd say really the only criterion for something being "classical" is that the composer considers him- or herself to be writing classical music.

A hundred years ago you could have said that it's a European style of music that is written down. However, in the 20th century it has expanded far beyond that.

Anyway ragtime fits both definitions: it draws heavily on the language of European written music, and Joplin, at least, considered himself to be writing classical music.


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## Guest

Art Tatum pays homage to Dvorak.


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## Guest

And how can we forget this?? Cakewalks were an early ragtime form although not even scholars of ragtime really know exactly how rags differ from cakewalks. I've seen the identical composition pronounced by one scholar to be a perfect cakewalk while another says that it definitely is not.


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## ArtMusic

Mahlerian said:


>


A minor part of Stravinsky's oeuvre.


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## Mahlerian

ArtMusic said:


> A minor part of Stravinsky's oeuvre.


Maybe, but this isn't.


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## ArtMusic

Is that Ragtime? In any case, it is a musical development of jazz or there of, and of course it can be applied to classical creatively. Just like folk music ideas were used by the great Haydn, but that doesn't mean folk music of Haydn's time was Classical music.


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## isorhythm

Ragtime is not jazz, and neither is analogous to folk music.


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## science

ArtMusic said:


> Is that Ragtime? In any case, it is a musical development of jazz or there of, and of course it can be applied to classical creatively. Just like folk music ideas were used by the great Haydn, but that doesn't mean folk music of Haydn's time was Classical music.


These categories are not as absolute as you're pretending to think. The boundaries have always been fluid.

Are Kapustin's compositions classical?


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## ArtMusic

Boundaries are always tricky. 

As long as you enjoy Ragtime, who really cares? I don't think it is classical. But the music can be very enjoyable, especially the originals by Joplin. I rather elevate Ragtime into its own special genre and evaluate on its own special merits. When you include it with classical, I do think it is going to overshadowed by all else in classical.


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## Guest

"Bethena" by Joplin. This is not a rag but it shows how immersed in classical music that he was. Bethena came out in 1905 just after the death of his second wife--Freddie Alexander--whom he had only been married to for a few months. He disappeared for some time and was not heard from until this piece was published. It was not published by Stark either which is also odd and not explained. People speculate that it is about his dead wife and I would have to believe that this is the case. He wrote no letters to anyone expressing his grief--at least none have been found. He was a man of few words. Very little personal correspondence of Joplin's exists. So, in all likelihood, he expressed himself with his music so, yes, I think he wrote this about his dead wife. All we know of her is that she was born in Little Rock, was only 19 (Joplin was 36), died of either pneumonia or the flu and that Joplin was madly in love with her. There are no photos of her. Some speculate the woman on the sheet music is her and that might explain the dearth of info about her--she was white at a time when such marriages were not only reviled but illegal. But this is just speculation.


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## science

Joplin composed an opera too. I'm not sure the full score has been saved, but enough of it has been that DG was able to release a recording of it. I have heard it once! I should hear it again, I'm reluctant to say anything about it because it's been a couple years....


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## Guest

That was "Treemonisha." We only have it because Joplin paid for the publishing of the score out of his own pocket. Although we have the full score that he paid for, I gravely doubt that it was the full opera. It was an abbreviated score that was demonstrated for potential backers. It definitely seems to me that large swaths of it are missing.

Here is the aria, "The Sacred Tree," sung by Treemonisha's mother concerning her daughter's mysterious origins. It's quite lovely, in 3/4 time but sublimated so as not to break into a waltz tempo. Musically, it is just marvelous:






The opera seems to be partially a memorial to his dead wife, Freddie Alexander, which leads me to believe she was black instead of white as some speculate. What is surprising in the opera is that Joplin equates hoodoo and Christianity as two forms of destructive superstition holding blacks back. And this message is delivered to them by a woman. We would have expected a man and that Christianity would be praised. But then religious blacks then reviled Joplin so I guess he was returning the favor. We do know that his early family life was not religious and they did not attend church. Joplin didn't appear to be an atheist but was clearly not a Christian theist. In the opera, the people do give thanks to "the Creator" but "god" is never used.





Prelude to Act III--man, listen to that ending. That still makes my eyes wet. That's just gorgeous.





"Good Advice" is the sermon by Parson Alltalk. As you can tell from the character's name, Joplin didn't think highly of clergymen. But that beautiful call & response he throws in is SO lovely. I'm surprised no church has swiped it. They're good at swiping.


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## Weston

I tend to think of classical as a tradition of western academic music, and this is not that -- not exactly. But then composers like Debussy clearly loved it. 

Of more importance to me is whether I enjoy it. I'm afraid I don't. I often skip over it whether it's Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk or Keith Emerson's performance of Maple Leaf Rag. I recognize the complexity and the virtuosity, but I don't enjoy it at all. It reminds me of jerky silent films, white straw vaudeville hats and smelly cigars. 

But then I seldom enjoy Strauss waltzes or Sousa marches. I'll grant that they are classical, but only by a technicality.


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## Guest

By the way, his private showing of the opera flopped badly. He couldn't get backers. It closed down the night it opened. This destroyed him spiritually. He was suffering from syphilis and it had already taken away his ability to play the piano. But getting "Treemonisha" ready for opening gave him purpose and energy. His third wife, Lottie, said after it closed, he just changed. He became more sullen and seemed suspicious of people. One day in 1916, she caught him burning armloads of his manuscripts and had to stop him. He was committed to an asylum where he slowly went senile and died there on April 1, 1917. Joplin had made Lottie promise to have a band play "Maple Leaf Rag" at his funeral and she hired a band for that appointed day but would not give them permission to play it. She stated later that she was so overcome with grief that she could not bear to hear it. She went to her grave in 1955 never forgiving herself for her weakness.





Here is the finale piece of the opera--"A Real Slow Drag" which is one of the few rags in the opera. Very interesting story about it. Joplin wrote it about 1910 and gave it to the publishing house Crown-Seminary-Snyder where a young executive took it and told Joplin they'd be in touch. After several months, Joplin heard nothing so he went back and inquired. The executive said they decided not to publish it and returned it to him. Joplin was miffed that they would keep it that long if they weren't going to publish it. When Joplin was in the Stark offices, he heard a new song playing. "That's my tune!!!" Joplin screamed and was so angry that he burst into tears. The song was "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and the writer, Irving Berlin, was the same executive who had accepted but then returned "A Real Slow Drag." Joplin was forced to change parts of the song to get it published. He never forgave Berlin.

Berlin refused to talk about it for several years, apparently hoping the hullabaloo would die away. It did not. It increased. There were definite similarities at points and it could hardly be coincidence. If it was unconscious plagiarism then why did Berlin keep the piece so long that Joplin as to go ask about it? Seems a bit fishy to me. By 1916, Berlin finally had to respond and did so in Green Book Magazine. He basically said if this "other fellow" felt he deserves the credit then he should go get it. Joplin never did but, by 1916, was so very gravely ill there was no way he could have. It does seem to me that Berlin stole parts of Joplin's piece to flesh out his piece and Joplin heard it right away. A shame a man of Berlin's caliber would resort to that.


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## Woodduck

Weston said:


> I tend to think of classical as a tradition of western academic music, and this is not that -- not exactly. But then composers like Debussy clearly loved it.
> 
> Of more importance to me is whether I enjoy it. I'm afraid I don't. I often skip over it whether it's Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk or Keith Emerson's performance of Maple Leaf Rag. I recognize the complexity and the virtuosity, but I don't enjoy it at all. It reminds me of jerky silent films, white straw vaudeville hats and smelly cigars.
> 
> But then I seldom enjoy *Strauss waltzes* or *Sousa marches*. I'll grant that they are classical, but only by a technicality.


I think Strauss and Sousa are both good examples of genre-blurring music from the past. The Strauss family toured Europe like rock stars with their dance orchestras, bringing waltzes and polkas and other dances written to order. On the other hand J. Strauss was a serious musician respected by both Wagner and Strauss's close friend Brahms, and his orchestra gave concerts and played classical music, including the Vienna premiere of excerpts from _Tristan und Isolde_ (I wonder how _that_ went over!). Sousa composed operettas as well as marches. I see no reason not to put Joplin in the same "semiclassical" category.


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## elgar's ghost

Woodduck said:


> I think Strauss and Sousa are both good examples of genre-blurring music from the past. The Strauss family toured Europe like rock stars with their dance orchestras, bringing waltzes and polkas and other dances written to order. On the other hand J. Strauss was a serious musician respected by both Wagner and Strauss's close friend Brahms, and his orchestra gave concerts and played classical music, including the Vienna premiere of excerpts from _Tristan und Isolde_ (I wonder how _that_ went over!). Sousa composed operettas as well as marches. I see no reason not to put Joplin in the same "semiclassical" category.


Totally in agreement here, W. The parallel with Strauss and Sousa is nigh-on exact.


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## Richannes Wrahms

The answer is no.


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## Guest

Weston said:


> I tend to think of classical as a tradition of western academic music, and this is not that -- not exactly. But then composers like Debussy clearly loved it.
> 
> Of more importance to me is whether I enjoy it. I'm afraid I don't. I often skip over it whether it's Debussy's Golliwog's Cakewalk or Keith Emerson's performance of Maple Leaf Rag. I recognize the complexity and the virtuosity, but I don't enjoy it at all. It reminds me of jerky silent films, white straw vaudeville hats and smelly cigars.
> 
> But then I seldom enjoy Strauss waltzes or Sousa marches. I'll grant that they are classical, but only by a technicality.


So is "Rhapsody in Blue" a classical composition?


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## KenOC

I asked some time ago if Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon _could be considered classical music. A lot of people went on the attack, evidently incensed that the question would even be asked. However, nobody offered a reasonable definition of "classical music" that would exclude it, at least to my thinking.


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## Guest

Basically, if it sounds like classical then its classical. I've had the same discussions about jazz. People were saying that jazz has to swing but a lot of free jazz doesn't swing and yet it is still jazz. Why? Simply because it _sounds_ like jazz. An anticlimactic answer but that's really it. So is "Dark Side of the Moon" classical? To me, no. Why? Because it doesn't sound like classical. Is "Days of Future Passed" classical? To me, yes, because it sounds like classical.

So is ragtime classical? Some of it definitely is because it sounds like classical. Some of it clearly is not. We even use terms as "classic ragtime" to describe that ragtime that is classical. The top-selling ragtime recording of the era was "The Preacher and the Bear" by Arthur Collins. Definitely not classical because it certainly doesn't sound like classical to me.






But Joplin's "The Cascades"? I'd say yes. Even the flat, mechanical-sounding 1904 piano roll can't hide it:


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## MarkW

I don't think the nomenclature matters -- only that I love Joplin's rags (by the way, it's _Joshua_ Rifkin, unless he's changed his name). And I have always been a fan of what I refer to as the "boogie woogie" variation of Beethoven's Opus 111.


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## Ukko

There has never been consensus on what classical music is. The ballpark it's in is big enough to hold ragtime.


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## EdwardBast

isorhythm said:


> Editing to elaborate a little: I'd say really the only criterion for something being "classical" is that the composer considers him- or herself to be writing classical music.


Unless that person is John Cage, presumably?


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## Guest

Many years ago I debated with myself whether to catalog Scott Joplin with my classical music, or with my jazz. Although ragtime predated jazz, it was obvious to me that jazz had some of it's origins rooted in ragtime. But early jazz was highly improvisational while ragtime was scored like classical. So it could go either way. Classical won out. I don't have any other ragtime composers in my collection, but Joplin is with my classical music.


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## science

Victor Redseal said:


> Basically, if it sounds like classical then its classical. I've had the same discussions about jazz. People were saying that jazz has to swing but a lot of free jazz doesn't swing and yet it is still jazz. Why? Simply because it _sounds_ like jazz. An anticlimactic answer but that's really it. So is "Dark Side of the Moon" classical? To me, no. Why? Because it doesn't sound like classical. Is "Days of Future Passed" classical? To me, yes, because it sounds like classical.


How about Stravinsky's jazz suites? What do they sound like?


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## Guest

science said:


> How about Stravinsky's jazz suites? What do they sound like?


To me, it's classical. Same with Shostakovich. Definite jazzy elements--trombone smears and what not--but ultimately it sounds like classical to me. However, there are parts in "Ebony Concerto" that sound similar to jazz composers when they venture into classical ("The Black Saint and the Sinner lady") so it's a kind of gray area of overlap--one coming from classical and crossing into jazz; the other coming from jazz and crossing into classical. Ultimately, one is still classical and one is still jazz but there is this twilight zone between them where it could go either way. It's beautiful stuff however you classify it.


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## Guest

Reviving this old thread because I was lying in bed very early this morning--maybe 3 am. I sleep with soothing music on. I can't sleep in complete silence. I plug this set of computer speakers I have into my phone. I have downloaded radio station apps from all over the globe onto my phone. One is a Radio Japan app that has a station called Ottava--a classical station. They play really beautiful stuff. While it is mostly Western music, I sometimes hear Japanese music. Anyway, this morning I was dreaming about Scott Joplin's "Elite Syncopations." I was dreaming I was in a saloon in the early 1900s and watching this guy playing it. Then gently awoke and it was playing on Ottava. So there is another instance of ragtime being treated as a form of classical. Or at least Joplin is considered a classical composer.






If you have a smart phone or an Android, go to the app store and download Radio Japan and give Ottava a listen. They play a really nice selection of stuff. Saturday morning, I woke up to Mozart's Piano Concerto #21 in C major, 2nd movement. It was like floating on a cloud. Radio France is really nice too!


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## ArtMusic

Ragtime is Ragtime, a type of genre on its own related to African-American music. But it is not classical music.


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## Dan Ante

Winifred Atwell was a well known Ragtime and Boogie Woogie player in Great Brittain in the 50s. I can't see the connection to classical a little nearer to Jazz but definitely not Jazz. It has its own slot called …… wait for it,,,,,,,,,,Ragtime. Oh you said the same ArtMusic


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## Daniel Atkinson




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## Daniel Atkinson

KenOC said:


> I asked some time ago if Pink Floyd's _Dark Side of the Moon _could be considered classical music. A lot of people went on the attack, evidently incensed that the question would even be asked. However, nobody offered a reasonable definition of "classical music" that would exclude it, at least to my thinking.


Dark side of the moon? :lol:


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## Guest

That is what is known as the "light rag." That was an earlier form of ragtime played in saloons and whorehouses and dances. Joplin and a group of black composers and white composer named Joseph Lamb wrote "heavy rags." These were injected with a healthy dose of classical music in effort to forge a black-American art music or what Joplin called "American Negro Classical Music."

Listen to Percy Wenrich's "The Smiler"--a light rag:






Now compare that to a heavy rag such as Joseph Lamb's "Cottontail Rag" and the difference is apparent. This is CLOSE to classical music:





Close enough to be a form of it, I would say.


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## TwoFlutesOneTrumpet

Not classical, according to the traditional classification but I dig it a lot, especially Joplin. In small dozes, though, as it tends to bore me after a bit. I prefer it to some music that is traditionally considered classical, like pretty much all the waltzes by Strauss.


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## Myriadi

What a fantastic thread! An eye-opener, really. I never looked past some of the most known Joplin pieces. Thank you, Victor Redseal. I wonder if there are any particularly good recordings and/or compilations to consider? I dislike using Youtube, and like having records to play... or at least a well sorted digital library


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## Guest

You're welcome, Myriadi.

Some recordings I have in my library:









The complete Stark rags of Joseph Lamb. This is a MUST HAVE for any ragtime enthusiast. Played by Guido Nielsen whom I believe to be of Holland. I've heard other works of his and they didn't impress me much because he tends to get a bit too frilly for me. But on this recording, he hits it out of the park. He nailed Lamb beautifully. The first time I played this, I thought, "Now, THAT is how Joseph Lamb needs to be heard!" IMO one of the best ragtime recordings available. Beautiful artwork too. An all-around gem.









The Complete Works of Scott Joplin in 5 volumes by Richard Zimmerman. Well played and very comprehensive. This is valuable because it contains rare works other Joplin compilations never include, especially his early stuff. It has excerpts from the Treemonisha opera also. As far as i know there are no other comps this comprehensive so you really need to have it.









Euphonic Sounds by Reginald R. Robinson. I had to write Reginald back in the 90s to get a copy of this CD. There was no other way to get it. I found him exceedingly polite. I had mentioned seeing a Vlasic Pickle commercial that used a bit of Joplin but I couldn't remember what it was and thought it might have been "Pineapple Rag." He wrote back and said that he too had seen that commercial and that they used the 4th theme of "The Cascades" which shows how much I know. I had a brief correspondence with Reginald's friend, Chris Ware in Chicago. Chris was an invaluable source for me. Anyway, this CD contains all three of Louis Chauvin's only published pieces and is the only recording that does. Reginald also plays by far the best version of "Heliotrope Bouquet" that I've ever heard. But what's really interesting is that Reginald and Chris were going over some original photos and memorabilia of Joplin's at Fisk University, I think. One photo was taken by Lottie or she hired someone. This photo was shot in the 40s, I think, for a magazine article that one of Joplin's proteges was writing about him (Joplin was entirely forgotten in the 40s). He asked Lottle for a photo of Scott's manuscripts sitting on his piano so Lottie had one taken. A very clear shot. But what really got to Chris and Reginald was that one of manuscripts was of an unknown Joplin piece and it even had lyrics that seems to be part of a love song. Reginald transcribed it and it's a rather complex snatch of music lasting about 31 seconds. I think it might have been something from Treemonisha that Joplin cut out when he decided to pay for an abbreviated score. It is included on this CD and is the only recording to have it.









Treemonisha by the Houston Grand Opera, arranged and conducted by Gunther Schuller. Joplin considered this to the culmination of his life's work. He had written another opera some years earlier but it is now lost. Joplin had two brothers in vaudeville who were about as famous as he was in those days--Will and Robert. They helped Joplin stage his operas and choreographed them and danced in them themselves. Anytime Scott wrote a new rag, he would get together with Will and Robert and they would work out a dance for it while Scott played the piano and they would tour around part of the Midwest playing it on the vaudeville circuit. It is doubtful that any of the Joplin Bros. original choreography remains in the opera. The overture is just flat out brilliant. It's a two-CD boxed set with a complete libretto. After it flopped and closed on its opening night, it was not heard from again for 60 years when it was finally performed before live audiences in the 70s following the success of the movie "The Sting" which exclusively used Joplin's music in the score (although no one knew who he was in the 30s when the movie takes place) and which revived Joplin's music in the public mind and making a big hit out of "The Entertainer"--a 1902 piece. In 1976, the opera earned Joplin a posthumous Pulitzer Prize and he has since become a cultural fixture as he always deserved to be but he deserved the recognition in life.

You say you don't like YouTube but I strongly urge to go there and check out my friend Ragtime Dorian Henry's video clips. He has posted a YUGE array of ragtime and other old music that I don't know where else you can find it. I make digital copies of his clips because a lot of these pieces are simply not available anywhere else. Once you start perusing Ragtime Dorian Henry's amazing library, you can't stop. Some amazing gems and a highly invaluable resource for ragtime and other old music. We're fortunate to have this guy posting this stuff. Don't ask me where he gets it all. I don't know. I'm just grateful he does it. And you will be too. And please drop him a thank you response too. It took a hell of a lot of work to do what he did and he appreciates it when people thank him for his efforts.

Another excellent internet source is Perfessor Bill Edwards--a hardcore ragtimer and piano genius.

http://www.perfessorbill.com/billbio.shtml

This website is vast and you can get lost in it REAL easy. If you go to the CD store tab, you can see all the CDs the Perfessor has available--all played by him. You can order any of them--I have. This guy is phenomenal--have fun!


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## Pat Fairlea

If Joplin's ragtime works are to be excluded for being insubstantial, then should we exclude, for example, Chopin's Preludes and Greig's Lyric Pieces? By sheer chance, I am currently listening to Gottschalk, who could be regarded as something of a predecessor of the ragtime pianists. And where would such exclusion leave Alkan?


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## Sonata

I am uncertain as to where ragtime should be classified. The few rags I have heard I have not particularly enjoyed. I have however really enjoyed the discussion, very thorough and well thought out. Enough so that I may dip back in and try a little more Joplin. In particular, I am an opera fan so I may look into Treemonisha.


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## hpowders

Classical, no. Ragtime sounds like jazz to me.


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## EdwardBast

Excellent and informative thread. Thank you.

"Should" and "considered" are irrelevant. Is or isn't is the issue. If rags are routinely performed in piano recitals with acknowledged classical works and if their recordings are commonplace — or at least not uncommon — in the collections of habitual classical listeners, then they are classical music.


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## Bulldog

Sonata said:


> I am uncertain as to where ragtime should be classified.


I'm not; just classify it under "Ragtime", because that's what it is.


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## Dan Ante

EdwardBast said:


> Excellent and informative thread. Thank you.
> 
> "Should" and "considered" are irrelevant. Is or isn't is the issue. If rags are routinely performed in piano recitals with acknowledged classical works and if their recordings are commonplace - or at least not uncommon - in the collections of habitual classical listeners, then they are classical music.


So if at a classical recital the pianist often includes "There's no business like show business" does that makes it a classical piece??


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## EdwardBast

Dan Ante said:


> So if at a classical recital the pianist often includes "There's no business like show business" does that makes it a classical piece??


If it became part of the standard repertoire with all that entails (recital performances, the existence of an authoritative, published text, being routinely learned by conservatory piano students, recordings), yes. This will never happen for "There's no business," for several obvious reasons. It could but likely won't happen for Joplin.


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## Dan Ante

Well I have never heard any type of ragtime or Boogie Woogie performed at a concert but I have heard pop and folk tunes at performances, one artist that springs to mind is Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.


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## Guest

Since ragtime is partially rooted in black folk dance music in America and partly in European classical, I think we let the African-American thing influence us too much. If ragtime were to be proven to have been entirely white in conception, would we still be saying it isn't classical? Perhaps we should modify Joplin's phrase "American Negro Classical Music" into simply "American Classical Music." After all, as I pointed out earlier, Dvorak used the so-called Negro spirituals on which to build his "New World Symphony" but no one dismisses this as semi-classical or an unserious novelty. Dvorak even stated, "In the Negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music."

Dvorak's sentiment caused a stir in American and European classical music circles. But composers as Debussy got on board pretty quickly and Dvorak died pretty early into the ragtime era (1904) but clearly he saw black American songs and melodies to be a folk root of American classical music just as Euro classical has a European folk root.

On the Sirius/XM satellite radio jazz station, it advertises jazz as "America's classical music." I think this is essentially a correct characterization. Jazz is American classical music and ragtime was a forerunner. Ragtime took the folk roots of black dance and minstrel fare and formalized it into a more universal structure that jazz then built from. Maybe what confuses people is that Euro classical evolved over a long period of time. Imagine going from Bach to Stravinski from 1700 to 1750. Ridiculous, you say! But that's what jazz did. From Buddy Bolden to Ornette Coleman was less than 60 years!











We Americans have a fundamentally different outlook than Europeans. We are more forward looking but as a result we have less reverence for the past. We talk of respect for tradition but we have none except in some stupid, racist political way ("Make America Great Again"). In Europe, a 300-year-old building is not a particularly big deal. It is virtually impossible in America to find a building that old. In New England, I did see some of these old 17th century houses in Massachusetts but, for the most part, a building that reaches 50 years is considered obsolete and must be torn down for the new modern building. But because we look forward to the detriment of the past, things change so fast. When I left my hometown and joined the service and went away for 6 years, I returned to a place I barely recognized. So our music changes that way as well.

We Americans don't change at a leisurely pace. We change at breakneck speed so that we can barely keep up with the changes we wreak on ourselves. So our music reflects that and it sounds disjointed, unfamiliar, rushed, unpolished unlike the much more practiced, stately and leisurely classical music of Europe. We're not as practiced in America because we move too fast so we improvise. As fast as we went from little rural towns with a marching bands playing at Sunday picnics to huge urban centers with night clubs with neon signs going full blast every night of the week, our jazz changed with it, documented it aurally. It is our classical music. And ragtime was that early proponent that bridged the gap from rural to urban, from old to modern, from leisurely to disjointed.


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## Sloe

Victor Redseal said:


> In Europe, a 300-year-old building is not a particularly big deal. It is virtually impossible in America to find a building that old. In New England, I did see some of these old 17th century houses in Massachusetts but, for the most part, a building that reaches 50 years is considered obsolete and must be torn down for the new modern building.


It depends on were in Europe you are.
In southern Europe it is not a big deal but in Northern Europe were houses were made of wood a 300 year old building is a big deal. It is mostly churches and castles that are that old.


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## Guest

Sloe said:


> It depends on were in Europe you are.
> In southern Europe it is not a big deal but in Northern Europe were houses were made of wood a 300 year old building is a big deal. It is mostly churches and castles that are that old.


Yes, that was due mainly to World War II. I remember when I was Kiel, Germany, there was only one building still standing before WWII and that was a big old church. The rest of the city was bombed to smithereens. But the US had no such disruptions. We simply don't like to let things get old. Occasionally we get on a nostalgia kick but this is rare. There's no profit in keeping old buildings around so we knock them down and set up new ones. It's hard to get antique books in the U.S. I have some going back to the 1500s and 1600s but I really had to look around. When I was in England, there was a bookstore that had a room that was stacked floor to ceiling with old books like that. In Europe, they are fairly commonplace. Showing my books to a European would not likely arouse much of a reaction beyond a shrug. Americans get wide-eyed when I show them my books. An old book in America is one that was published in the 1930s, no kidding.


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## JAS

There is a good deal of music that is generally called "light" classical and which falls somewhat in the "popular" side in terms of audience (mostly considered when orchestral or chamber music was still a dominant force). That is usually still considered classical, although often with a somewhat dismissive sneer. (Professional musicians that I have met tend to hate the "pops" concerts, even more so because they are financially dependent on them.) I am rather fond of Ragtime, especially Joplin (I even have a recording of his Treemonisha, and several CDs of music played back from piano rolls, apparently too often "sweetened" by extra notes at the time of publication and yet as close as we are likely to come to hearing Joplin play his own music), but it seems to me that it falls a bit further away and not really quite classical, although I would not feel it out of place if a pianist played a Joplin piece at a concert as a showy encore item. I was unaware of harpsichord performances of Joplin music, and thank the person who started the thread for pointing me in a direction to pursue. (I have ordered 2 CDs, although the one initially shown appears to be available only on vinyl, which I abandoned long ago.)


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## pokeefe0001

Well, take a step back from ragtime about 50 years and consider the compositions of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Definitely a classical composer and pianist. But growing up in New Orleans he was surrounded by black dance music (Cake Walk, etc.) and incorporated it into his composition. Although nor in ragtime form there is a lot of "ragged time" (syncopation against straight rhythm) mixed in. If Gottschalk is a classical composer certainly Joplin should considered one, too.

Some examples:


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## gardibolt

I think ragtime is definitely classical music. It's very closely tied to the march, and that has a long history within classical music---Haydn and Beethoven wrote marches, as did the Strausses. Heck, listen carefully to Beethoven's Bagatelle op.126 nr. 4 and you'll hear some primitive ragtime syncopations there.


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## Guest

pokeefe0001 said:


> Well, take a step back from ragtime about 50 years and consider the compositions of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Definitely a classical composer and pianist. But growing up in New Orleans he was surrounded by black dance music (Cake Walk, etc.) and incorporated it into his composition. Although nor in ragtime form there is a lot of "ragged time" (syncopation against straight rhythm) mixed in. If Gottschalk is a classical composer certainly Joplin should considered one, too.
> 
> Some examples:


Yes, I've listened to Gottschalk quite a bit. He was a definite forerunner of ragtime although I don't know how much direct bearing he had on the genre. But, again, he played a form of American classical.


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## Bettina

gardibolt said:


> I think ragtime is definitely classical music. It's very closely tied to the march, and that has a long history within classical music---Haydn and Beethoven wrote marches, as did the Strausses. Heck, listen carefully to Beethoven's Bagatelle op.126 nr. 4 and you'll hear some primitive ragtime syncopations there.


Yes, and there's also the swing rhythms in the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32. (Although those might be more characteristic of jazz than ragtime.)


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## Nereffid

I'm listening to a new release of piano rags by William Bolcom (performed by Spencer Myer, on the Steinway & Sons label) and they certainly seem classical to me.








https://www.amazon.com/Spencer-Myer-Bolcom-Rags/dp/B01N6P2FLE


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## tdc

Bettina said:


> Yes, and there's also the swing rhythms in the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 32. (Although those might be more characteristic of jazz than ragtime.)


I'm wondering how Beethoven could have accomplished this since 'swing' rhythms are not something that can be notated.


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## Bettina

tdc said:


> I'm wondering how Beethoven could have accomplished this since 'swing' rhythms are not something that can be notated.


You can hear and see it in this video. The "swing" variation starts at 12:48 and lasts until 14:50.


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## Guest

Bettina said:


> You can hear and see it in this video. The "swing" variation starts at 12:48 and lasts until 14:50.


There is some swing-feel in there and while it isn't ragtime--it's close. You have to wonder if Joplin ever ran across this. You would think he did.


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## tdc

Bettina said:


> You can hear and see it in this video. The "swing" variation starts at 12:48 and lasts until 14:50.


There certainly is some resemblance in that clip, but I think it is being created by the performer. I don't think there is any "swing" in the actual notes on the page.


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## Guest

Don't forget my companion thread on ragtime in another folder:

http://www.talkclassical.com/43176-images-ragtime-era.html


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## Guest

Here is Claude Arrau's version. It starts at 15:29. Accented on 2 and 4 which is how you walk bass in swing.





Barenboim's version. Starts at 17:15.





Pollini's version. Starts at 14:32.

All these versions seem to me to play that passage accented on 2 and 4 and when you do that it will swing. As I said, when you walk bass, you do it in 4/4 time with accents of 2 and 4. It seems most sublimated in Barenboim's version but it's still there. So it does not appear to be up to the performer. I mean, the performer has a little lee way but not much.

DiesIrae on the first page of this thread referenced this piece and quoted some pianists who have performed it as saying it is "proto-jazz" or "boogie-woogie."


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## tdc

Victor Redseal said:


> All these versions seem to me to play that passage accented on 2 and 4 and when you do that it will swing. As I said, when you walk bass, you do it in 4/4 time with accents of 2 and 4. It seems most sublimated in Barenboim's version but it's still there. So it does not appear to be up to the performer. I mean, the performer has a little lee way but not much.
> 
> DiesIrae on the first page of this thread referenced this piece and quoted some pianists who have performed it as saying it is "proto-jazz" or "boogie-woogie."


That is possible but all these players are playing the piece post-swing era, so the influence could be from that. Musicians can also influence other musicians.

Perhaps the chord progression has something in it that is proto-jazz, but then the same can be said for some of the works of earlier composers such as Bach.

All I'm saying is that it is not possible to put swing rhythm in notation.


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## tdc

Victor Redseal said:


> All these versions seem to me to play that passage accented on 2 and 4 and when you do that it will swing. As I said, when you walk bass, you do it in 4/4 time with accents of 2 and 4.


Not everything with accents on 2 and 4 will 'swing'. You can still just play the music straight or add 'swing' to it.

I will add that jazz is not the only form of music that has rhythmic subtleties that are not possible to accurately notate. All good musicians in all genres will add this kind of thing to some extent in different ways.

When Bartok was trying to notate folk music he had collected he was often frustrated with the limits of notation in transcribing the rhythmic subtleties.


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## Guest

tdc said:


> That is possible but all these players are playing the piece post-swing era, so the influence could be from that. Musicians can also influence other musicians.


The reason I don''t buy this is because you can't play that passage without it falling into a groove and it is obvious Beethoven intends for the listener to fall into the groove. Barenboim's version tries to avoid grooving--evidently he was uncertain that Beethoven intended that--and all he succeeds in doing is interrupting the groove in a way that it becomes annoying. But he doesn't want to completely jog the rhythm out of whack because Beethoven clearly didn't intend that and he falls into a groove, tries to pull back but falls into again. There's really no way to avoid it. The only other option would be to slow it down until the groove becomes imperceptible and then you're destroying the piece.



> Perhaps the chord progression has something in it that is proto-jazz, but then the same can be said for some of the works of earlier composers such as Bach.


I don't know what chord progression has to do with swing. Most swing I know of is ii-V or ii-V-I but that is generally because swing is less concerned with chord progression than with rhythm. But you could take any chord progression and make it swing as long as you keep it fairly simple.



> All I'm saying is that it is not possible to put swing rhythm in notation.


Now you're taking modern swing and putting it in Beethoven's head. Today, I can hand a pianist something in straight eighth notes and say, "Swing it." No problem. Beethoven didn't have that luxury. He had to find a way to notate it. He had to write something that no matter who played it, he or she would fall into a groove. You simply can't play that passage without falling into a groove. Barenboim proves that, try to jog it too much and you lose the piece.


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## Guest

tdc said:


> Not everything with accents on 2 and 4 will 'swing'. You can still just play the music straight or add 'swing' to it.


I won't debate that. It's how you play swing bass. I mean, there's more complicated things you have to do but Beethoven doesn't do those because he didn't have a swing musical vocabulary to turn to. He had to keep it simple. He was doing something that classical isn't generally known for which is horizontal propulsion.



> I will add that jazz is not the only form of music that has rhythmic subtleties that are not possible to accurately notate. All good musicians in all genres will add this kind of thing to some extent in different ways.


Isn't that a repudiation of everything you've just posted on this subject?



> When Bartok was trying to notate folk music he had collected he was often frustrated with the limits of notation in transcribing the rhythmic subtleties.


But Beethoven wasn't? Here's a guy who pounded pianos so hard they broke but he wasn't concerned with adding horizontal drive to his music?


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## JAS

If we were to say that ragtime is classical music, what period or school would we put it in? (And the answer "ragtime," of course, defeats the purpose of the question.)


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## Bettina

JAS said:


> If we were to say that ragtime is classical music, what period or school would we put it in? (And the answer "ragtime," of course, defeats the purpose of the question.)


Modernism, because of its sophisticated and innovative approach to rhythm. Many modernist composers (Stravinsky, Bartok) explored complicated rhythmic patterns. I would put Joplin (and ragtime in general) in that category.


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## tdc

Victor Redseal said:


> The reason I don't buy this is because you can't play that passage without it falling into a groove and it is obvious Beethoven intends for the listener to fall into the groove.


Frankly, I don't know if that is true, but I'm skeptical. There are a lot of ways to phrase notes and I think its possible that musicians are reading something into this passage that wasn't intended. The reason Barenboim sounds weird to you is because you are used to hearing it in other ways. None of this changes the fact it is not possible to notate swing.



Victor Redseal said:


> Isn't that a repudiation of everything you've just posted on this subject?


Not at all, because here I was talking about rhythmic subtleties in general, not 'swing' specifically. 'Swing' is a name that was given to a specific type of rhythmic subtlety used in jazz. But all good musicians add some type of rhythmic subtlety into their playing or they would sound like computers. For example you can notate a Jimmy Page solo, but an individual is not going to get the full idea of how he sounds without hearing him play because much of the rhythmic subtlety (whether it is 'swing' or something else) gets lost in translation in the process of notating it.

Likewise there were other prominent types of rhythmic subtleties (not 'swing') in much of the folk music Bartok had listened to that he was not able to accurately notate.


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## tdc

Keep in mind I haven't really taken issue with anyone calling the Beethoven piece 'proto-jazz' (because in a vague way a lot of classical music could be shown to have these qualities). This conversation started because Bettina claimed that Beethoven used 'swing' rhythms.


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## Bettina

tdc said:


> Keep in mind I haven't really taken issue with anyone calling the Beethoven piece 'proto-jazz' (because in a vague way a lot of classical music could be shown to have these qualities). This conversation started because Bettina claimed that Beethoven used 'swing' rhythms.


Yes, I believe that this particular variation contains swing rhythms. In other words, Beethoven's notation instructs the performer to "swing." Here is how, in my opinion, the notation accomplishes this feat:

-The alternations between 32nd and 64th notes.

-The "sf" markings (accents) written above many of the 64th notes.

-The chromatic appoggiaturas on weak beats, which create a backbeat effect.

None of those features in isolation would necessarily produce a swing rhythm. Indeed, each of these individual features can be found in numerous classical works. However, I would argue that the combination of these three features--the way that they are used in tandem--encourages the performer to create a "groove."


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## tdc

Bettina said:


> Yes, I believe that this particular variation contains swing rhythms. In other words, Beethoven's notation instructs the performer to "swing." Here is how, in my opinion, the notation accomplishes this feat:
> 
> -The alternations between 32nd and 64th notes.
> 
> -The "sf" markings (accents) written above many of the 64th notes.
> 
> -The chromatic appoggiaturas on weak beats, which create a backbeat effect.
> 
> None of those features in isolation would necessarily produce a swing rhythm. Indeed, each of these individual features can be found in numerous classical works. However, I would argue that the combination of these three features--the way that they are used in tandem--encourages the performer to create a "groove."


You are free to your opinion.

Speaking generally not to you specifically here it seems to me that some fans of Beethoven seem to want to over state his accomplishments as if everything that developed in modern music is thanks to him.

For the record Beethoven is not the only composer who has composed music that some interpreters feel some 'swing' is appropriate.

There is this Monteverdi disc for example:










I remember listening to a Duke Ellington interview where he seemed to state that he felt jazz started with J.S. Bach.

I recall playing through BWV 996 the first time and being stunned at how many of the chords and harmonies I encountered in it I already knew from jazz pieces.


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## Guest

JAS said:


> If we were to say that ragtime is classical music, what period or school would we put it in? (And the answer "ragtime," of course, defeats the purpose of the question.)


But if you want strict separation of the categories then you could say the same about, say, baroque. Ragtime--well, classic ragtime--is a subgenre of classical. Ask yourself if people raised on baroque and who heard the newer classical stuff arising thought that the two styles were, in any way, related. No doubt they would be surprised, if not contemptuous, of the fact that we consider them subgenres of the same music.


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## Dan Ante

This reminds me of a thread "Is a computer a musical instrument" which went on for ages getting nowhere, the best answer, I think by Mirror Image =* No! it's a friggin computer.*


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## Guest

Verrry interesting!


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## Dan Ante

Victor Redseal said:


> Verrry interesting!


And the point you are making is???


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## pokeefe0001

There is no one single definition of "classical music". Obviously some people commenting in this thread think ragtime is (or at least can be) "classical music"; others do not.

To my way of thinking, the background and derivation of a type of music does not determine its genre. What is done with the material is more important. And to my ear, some ragtime is definitely classical. According to somebody - Eubie Blake? - Scott Joplin wrote at least some of his ragtime pieces as etudes.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (considered a classical composer by Liszt) was writing ragtime 50 years before it had a name.
La Gallina, danse cubaine for piano, 4 hands, Op. 53 



Bamboula Danse Des ******, Op. 2 



Many more.

And then there's William Bolcom's Graceful Ghost. I've searched the web and (so far) have found only a couple that have the "swing" that Bolcom's own recording has. Here's one: 



. (Most of the other videos I've seen sounded more "classical" but I suspect Bolcom played it as he thought it should be played.)


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## DaveM

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's likely a duck. Ragtime does none of these. It is not classical music by any definition.


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## pokeefe0001

I think it depends on your duck. Look at the the Wikipedia entry on "Classic Rag" (also called classical rag). 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_rag
It's a very highly structured form.

It also has a very specific rhythmic pattern. Wikipedia describes it as a syncopated right hand over a straight walking bass in 2/4. If a waltz can be shoved into a classical form so can a ragtime.


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## DaveM

pokeefe0001 said:


> I think it depends on your duck. Look at the the Wikipedia entry on "Classic Rag" (also called classical rag).
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classic_rag
> It's a very highly structured form.
> 
> It also has a very specific rhythmic pattern. Wikipedia describes it as a syncopated right hand over a straight walking bass in 2/4. If a waltz can be shoved into a classical form so can a ragtime.


The term 'classic' or 'classical' rag does not mean that rag is classical music any more than the term 'classic rock' means that rock is classical music. Nothing in that wiki link categorizes rag as classical music. Neither does the fact that it is highly structured. Back in the day of record stores, you wouldn't find ragtime recordings in the classical music section.


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## pokeefe0001

DaveM said:


> The term 'classic' or 'classical' rag does not mean that rag is classical music any more than the term 'classic rock' means that rock is classical music. Nothing in that wiki link categorizes rag as classical music. Neither does the fact that it is highly structured.


I wasn't saying the that the "classical" in that article and "classical" in classical music meant the same thing. In my book, the fact that it is highly structured goes a long way towards implying it is "classical music". The existence of ragtime "form" tends to put it in the realm of "art music".



DaveM said:


> Back in the day of record stores, you wouldn't find ragtime recordings in the classical music section.


Actually, back in the 70s Discount Records in Seattle _did_ have Scott Joplin in the classical music section. I bought a number of Joplin records including several recordings of transcriptions by The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble under Gunther Schuller.

But, in general, what difference does it make? We either think of ragtime as a classical form or we don't. We either like a particular rag for whatever reasons we like and dislike music or we don't. I'm never going to convince anybody that ragtime is a classical form and you are not going to convince anybody it is not. The world will keep turning and people will like or dislike music regardless of our classifications.


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## DaveM

pokeefe0001 said:


> But, in general, what difference does it make? We either think of ragtime as a classical form or we don't. We either like a particular rag for whatever reasons we like and dislike music or we don't. I'm never going to convince anybody that ragtime is a classical form and you are not going to convince anybody it is not...


I don't think the great majority of classical music listeners think of rag as classical music. As for what difference does it make-in the end, not much, but I didn't start the thread, I'm expressing my opinion.


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## JeffD

It is popular to play many of the classic rags exactly as written. This exactness, similar to that of regular classical music performances, ruins the feeling of ragtime a bit. IMO

Scott Joplin aside, because he is so popular that any departure from the score would be noticed. But things like Stones Rag and Beaumont Rag, are so fun to play and so fun to hear, because one can let go of the score and let the rhythmification take over.

At that point, the rag, (in what i would call its truest form), departs from classical music and has more in common with jazz, or blues, or rock.


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## Dan Ante

Nearer to Jazz than classical.


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## insomniclassicac

I consider the rags of the "Big Three" (Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb) to be classical music. Rather than expend keystrokes arguing taxonomy, though, I'll let the music speak for itself and post a few of my favorites interpreted by the renowned ragtime-er, Max Morath:

Joplin: Gladiolus Rag





Lamb: Top Liner Rag





Scott: Hilarity


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## Dan Ante

insomniclassicac said:


> I consider the rags of the "Big Three" (Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph Lamb) to be classical music. Rather than expend keystrokes arguing taxonomy, though, I'll let the music speak for itself and post a few of my favorites interpreted by the renowned ragtime-er, Max Morath:
> 
> Joplin: Gladiolus Rag
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Lamb: Top Liner Rag
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Scott: Hilarity


And you consider that classical music.


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## gardibolt

Here's the Beethoven op.126/4 bagatelle; the ragtime bit starts around 0:15:






Most classical pianists intentionally play it in a way that smears the syncopation and makes it not sound like ragtime (cf. Brendel's version) but it you look at the score it's essentially indistinguishable from something by Joplin, Joseph Lamb or James Scott during that little interlude.


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## DaveM

gardibolt said:


> Here's the Beethoven op.126/4 bagatelle; the ragtime bit starts around 0:15:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Most classical pianists intentionally play it in a way that smears the syncopation and makes it not sound like ragtime (cf. Brendel's version) but it you look at the score it's essentially indistinguishable from something by Joplin, Joseph Lamb or James Scott during that little interlude.


So what is the point? The fact that a short sequence of a bagatelle _might_ bear a similarity to ragtime means that ragtime should be considered classical music?


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## eugeneonagain

Plenty of music that started life as folk dance music entered the repertoire through adoption by art-music composers and development into bigger forms. Waltzes/Ländlers, minuets, jigs... all these operated as folk music in the way ragtime did. 

Joplin wrote a complete ragtime opera and if an opera isn't 'classical music' then what is? Another 'serious' composer who dallied with ragtime was George Gershwin.

Concerning ragtime being music 'played from a score'... well historically this is inaccurate because for a long time it was highly improvised music with only a basic score (if at all). However so was classical music, also performed with extended improvisation from a basic score - continuo, cadenzas...

When we say 'classical music' we seem to be imagining some deep, philosophical art form, but a great deal of music classified as "classical" has been simply entertainment music, lighter in weight, made for dancing or easy listening. Do we exclude this? 
The real discussion is about Joplin and the few others like him. He lifted ragtime to an art-form, no doubt because of his training and musical gifts and his ear for classical. His rags, waltzes, polkas are beautifully written works with novel and complex harmonies.

I say it has entered the classical world, even if it is the fringes.


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## EdwardBast

DaveM said:


> If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's likely a duck. Ragtime does none of these. It is not classical music by any definition.


One defining feature of classical music is that its works have a definitive notated text and what counts as an instance of the work is a faithful performance of that text. This feature alone distinguishes ragtime from nearly all folk, rock, popular music and the great majority of jazz. At the least, it _looks_ like a duck.


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## Dan Ante

If its classical why has it been labled as something else for all these years same goes for jazz pop rock and others


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> If its classical why has it been labled as something else for all these years same goes for jazz pop rock and others


"Labelled" is the very word. It likely has something to do with its origins. However there were already favorable views of ragtime as distinctive product of American life as early as the turn of the century and the early years of the 20th. Here's a review from Olin Downes from 1918:



> As for "rag-time," its wide acceptance by the people can only be accepted as proof that it finds an echo in their hearts. And what finds an echo in their hearts of the people I refuse to believe to be wholly insincere, superficial or meretricious. "Rag-time" in its best estate is for me one of our most precious musical assets.


Now whatever anyone thinks of Downes it's enough that such an opinion even formed in the mind of critics dealing with "classical music". People can knock 'the taste of the people' as a measure, but it wasn't just 'the people'. Stravinsky also had a good opinion of ragtime calling it:



> "The absolute truth of utterance of American art. God forbid that you Americans should compose symphonies or fugues..."
> _American music is true art, says Stravinsky - New York Tribune, Jan 1916_


It was already admired and listened to by notable people in Europe (always a measure of "taste" for the cultural crowd in 19thc America looking to draw parallels). The Russian Tsar, the British Royals, were known fans. It was also seen as music for listening to, rather than merely dance music.


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## DaveM

How to confuse a new classical music listener: 'We just listened to a little Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. Now let's listen to a little ragtime.'


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> "Labelled" is the very word. It likely has something to do with its origins. However there were already favorable views of ragtime as distinctive product of American life as early as the turn of the century and the early years of the 20th. Here's a review from Olin Downes from 1918:
> 
> Now whatever anyone thinks of Downes it's enough that such an opinion even formed in the mind of critics dealing with "classical music". People can knock 'the taste of the people' as a measure, but it wasn't just 'the people'. Stravinsky also had a good opinion of ragtime calling it:
> 
> It was already admired and listened to by notable people in Europe (always a measure of "taste" for the cultural crowd in 19thc America looking to draw parallels). The Russian Tsar, the British Royals, were known fans. It was also seen as music for listening to, rather than merely dance music.


The Royals are not known for impeccable taste and I would venture that the Tsars also have a few shortcomings but I am not criticising them. 
The vast majority of music lovers and critics over the years have not classed this type of music as classical I do not personally know any one that would remove Ragtime from its little pigeon hole and put it into the Classical Music hole, it is just beyond belief.

So is Ragtime classical? no its friggin Ragtime.


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> The Royals are not known for impeccable taste and I would venture that the Tsars also have a few shortcomings but I am not criticising them.
> The vast majority of music lovers and critics over the years have not classed this type of music as classical I do not personally know any one that would remove Ragtime from its little pigeon hole and put it into the Classical Music hole, it is just beyond belief.
> 
> So is Ragtime classical? no its friggin Ragtime.


This is an incorrigible opinion based upon mere 'feeling'. The debate over ragtime is old, but its detractors have been putting forward the same old objections unchanged since it began.


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## EdwardBast

DaveM said:


> How to confuse a new classical music listener: 'We just listened to a little Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. Now let's listen to a little ragtime.'


Is it any weirder to say: "We just listened to a little Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. Now let's listen to a little Debussy?"


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## DaveM

EdwardBast said:


> Is it any weirder to say: "We just listened to a little Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. Now let's listen to a little Debussy?"


Yes, that would be a shock to the system, but for different reasons having to do with the subject of 'modern' classical music, an entirely different subject.

Ragtime originated in late 19th century African-American music and was eventually displaced by jazz which eventually, occasionally, revisited rag, Classical music didn't figure significantly in its origins regardless of the fact that composers such as Debussy and Ravel were influenced by it.


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## Sonata

Would it be unreasonable then to consider ragtime an early form of jazz?


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## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> Yes, that would be a shock to the system, but for different reasons having to do with the subject of 'modern' classical music, an entirely different subject.
> 
> Ragtime originated in late 19th century African-American music and was eventually displaced by jazz which eventually, occasionally, revisited rag, Classical music didn't figure significantly in its origins regardless of the fact that composers such as Debussy and Ravel were influenced by it.


Joplin very much approached his rags and similar pieces from a standpoint of classical style, he had classical training. Jazz, though later rather than earlier, has sometimes played down the link with ragtime, though both of them share the blend of African rhythms and 'call/response' mixed with European ideas about harmony. Ragtime's harmony structure, particularly that of Joplin, and he was widely imitated, is very classical.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> Joplin very much approached his rags and similar pieces from a standpoint of classical style, he had classical training. Jazz, though later rather than earlier, has sometimes played down the link with ragtime, though both of them share the blend of African rhythms and 'call/response' mixed with European ideas about harmony. Ragtime's harmony structure, particularly that of Joplin, and he was widely imitated, is very classical.


Joplin became the most important face of ragtime, but he wasn't the originator. African-Americans, before Joplin, originated rag and it's unlikely they we're listening to much classical music -or being influenced by it in any substantial way- in the 19th century. Besides, African-Americans moved on to jazz, not classical, after Joplin's death. I don't argue against classical music influence in Joplin's music. He wouldn't be the first or last to be influenced by it (think The Beatles, Moody Blues, Eric Carmen, Jeff Lynne )


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## Nate Miller

If you are looking for the influence of classical music in jazz, you should be talking about Lester Young. He sounded like he was coming out of left field because he was playing on the upper structure of the harmony...something he took directly from Debussy.

I learned to play bebop on the band stand from the old fellas who had been around in the 1940s and 50s. All of them told me that Debussy was an influence of theirs


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## EdwardBast

DaveM said:


> Yes, that would be a shock to the system, but for different reasons having to do with the subject of 'modern' classical music, an entirely different subject.
> 
> Ragtime originated in late 19th century African-American music and was eventually displaced by jazz which eventually, occasionally, revisited rag, *Classical music didn't figure significantly in its origins* regardless of the fact that composers such as Debussy and Ravel were influenced by it.


This is obviously wrong. To further Eugene's observation: The language of ragtime is predominantly classical both in it melody and harmony. Moreover, it is arguably stylistically closer to Brahms than Debussy.


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## fluteman

DaveM said:


> If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's likely a duck. Ragtime does none of these. It is not classical music by any definition.


I have no idea what you mean by that, so I won't argue with it. I will say, though I'm not going into the lengthy analysis to demonstrate or prove it here, that ragtime music is an important part of American musical culture and history. Igor Stravinsky, who was not an American composer by any stretch of the imagination, though he long lived in the US, but who was was an acute and insightful observer of music and other cultural traditions other than those he was born into, respected it enough to write his Ragtime for 11 Instruments, a piece I performed in college. Descriptive terms like "classical music", or "romantic music", or modern music", are inevitably somewhat arbitrary and exist only to help us express ideas in shorthand, not to hem us in or force us to accept rigid predetermined value or aesthetic judgments. As soon as we get bogged down in debates about what classical music is, the term begins to lose its usefulness.


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## eugeneonagain

Nate Miller said:


> If you are looking for the influence of classical music in jazz, you should be talking about Lester Young. He sounded like he was coming out of left field because he was playing on the upper structure of the harmony...something he took directly from Debussy.
> 
> I learned to play bebop on the band stand from the old fellas who had been around in the 1940s and 50s. All of them told me that Debussy was an influence of theirs


Looks like we may have at least something in common! I'm a big LY fan.


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## DaveM

EdwardBast said:


> This is obviously wrong. To further Eugene's observation: The language of ragtime is predominantly classical both in it melody and harmony. Moreover, it is arguably stylistically closer to Brahms than Debussy.


In re-reading my post, I misspoke in saying 'didn't figure significantly' since there are elements in ragtime that relate to classical music and I can't say that. I might have said 'didn't figure primarily '. Still, the direct influence of classical music on the originators of Rag is unknown. Nothing I've read about Ernest Hogan indicates that his primary influence was classical music.

I understand that you and, apparently, some others choose to call rag classical music because of some similarities of some elements. I don't, not even remotely. I repeat that the people who listened to rag moved on to jazz, not classical music which is an indication of what kind of feel, structure and performance they were moved by and looking for. I find that more significant when deciding how to classify ragtime.


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## EdwardBast

DaveM said:


> In re-reading my post, I misspoke in saying 'didn't figure significantly' since there are elements in ragtime that relate to classical music and I can't say that. I might have said 'didn't figure primarily '. Still, the direct influence of classical music on the originators of Rag is unknown. Nothing I've read about Ernest Hogan indicates that his primary influence was classical music.
> 
> *I understand that you and, apparently, some others choose to call rag classical music because of some similarities of some elements.* I don't, not even remotely. I repeat that the people who listened to rag moved on to jazz, not classical music which is an indication of what kind of feel, structure and performance they were moved by and looking for. I find that more significant when deciding how to classify ragtime.


I haven't made an argument or expressed an opinion about whether or not ragtime should be regarded as classical music. I'm just doing my part to see that the elements of common vocabulary are considered, or at least not dismissed out of hand. Fluteman has a good point about the arbitrariness of hard and fast categories.


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## Nate Miller

eugeneonagain said:


> Looks like we may have at least something in common! I'm a big LY fan.




you're alright you crazy Irishman


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## DaveM

EdwardBast said:


> I haven't made an argument or expressed an opinion about whether or not ragtime should be regarded as classical music. I'm just doing my part to see that the elements of common vocabulary are considered, or at least not dismissed out of hand...


Now you tell me! -or- Had me fooled! Not sure which.


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## fluteman

DaveM said:


> Joplin became the most important face of ragtime, but he wasn't the originator. African-Americans, before Joplin, originated rag and it's unlikely they we're listening to much classical music -or being influenced by it in any substantial way- in the 19th century. Besides, African-Americans moved on to jazz, not classical, after Joplin's death. I don't argue against classical music influence in Joplin's music. He wouldn't be the first or last to be influenced by it (think The Beatles, Moody Blues, Eric Carmen, Jeff Lynne )


While I understand some of what you're saying here, I think you are giving eugeneonagain's insightful comment short shrift. Remember that Joplin was African-American, not African. He wrote rags for the equal-tempered piano, an instrument very much out of the western classical tradition and designed to play traditional western harmonies, and that is very much what he used, along with many other formal western classical music constructs, with syncopated rythms usually in the treble with the contrasting bass line remaining squarely on the beat with an oom-pah ostinato effect that had been popularized by 19th century German bands and composers, as with the polka. It's the melodic syncopation in the treble line that is the key departure from the western classical tradition, seized upon and greatly expanded by the early jazz musicians. You just can't separate all these traditions so neatly.


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## Bulldog

I continue to believe that there is no good reason to place ragtime under the umbrella of any other musical form.


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## DaveM

fluteman said:


> While I understand some of what you're saying here, I think you are giving eugeneonagain's insightful comment short shrift. Remember that Joplin was African-American, not African. He wrote rags for the equal-tempered piano, an instrument very much out of the western classical tradition and designed to play traditional western harmonies, and that is very much what he used, along with many other formal western classical music constructs, with syncopated rythms usually in the treble with the contrasting bass line remaining squarely on the beat with an oom-pah ostinato effect that had been popularized by 19th century German bands and composers, as with the polka. It's the melodic syncopation in the treble line that is the key departure from the western classical tradition, seized upon and greatly expanded by the early jazz musicians. You just can't separate all these traditions so neatly.


There's no need to separate all these traditions so neatly, but there is a need to separate them otherwise we are muddying the waters as to what classical music is. All of what you say above is a support for an influence -the extent to which is arguable- of classical music form(s) on ragtime, not for the inclusion of ragtime as a category of classical music. (With the exception of the comment about the piano used which is irrelevant.)

In fact, the African-Americans who gave rise to, and were influenced by, ragtime might just be a little insulted by the attempt to call ragtime a form of classical music with its strong white European roots. Ragtime was very much their music and their invention and was a substantial precursor of jazz, more than classical music.


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## fluteman

DaveM said:


> There's no need to separate all these traditions so neatly, but there is a need to separate them otherwise we are muddying the waters as to what classical music is. All of what you say above is a support for an influence -the extent to which is arguable- of classical music form(s) on ragtime, not for the inclusion of ragtime as a category of classical music. (With the exception of the piano used which is irrelevant.)
> 
> In fact, the African-Americans who gave rise to, and were influenced by, ragtime might just be a little insulted by the attempt to call ragtime a form of classical music with its strong white European roots. Ragtime was very much their music and their invention and was a substantial precursor of jazz, far more than classical music.


Respectfully, the fact that Joplin wrote piano pieces, and even an opera, is very relevant. And though I can't prove you wrong (there really is no right or wrong with semantic issues) your concern about "muddying the waters as to what classical music is" and worrying that calling ragtime a classical idiom may be "insulting" only illustrates the pitfall I referred to earlier: trying to give mere descriptive terms that are invariably arbitrary no matter how careful one tries to be with them some rigid technical significance doesn't work. "Classical" originally referred to the classical period of western antiquity and the height or golden ages of ancient Greek and Roman empires. Then the word began to be applied to much later art and architecture with some of the characteristics attributed to the art and architecture of that earlier period -- spare, precise geometric structures with elaborate symmetries, for example. But eventually the term in music began to be applied not just to the classical music period (say, circa 1750 to 1825) but to all music created by musicians knowledgeable in and influenced by past western musical traditions. Talk about "muddying the waters"! In the music of 19th century America, one can clearly begin to hear the influence of non-western, i.e., African music traditions. But I'd say the influence of western classical traditions is equally important in that music, in general. In other words, jazz is an outgrowth of both European and African classical traditions, both fundamentally important.

So in the end, one needs to tailor terms like classical music to the specific music under discussion, not the other way around. Calling Stravinsky's Ragtime or Ebony Concerto classical music is as much a comment on his identity as a white European composer as it is on the music itself, so there's no point in obsessing over these terms.


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## EdwardBast

DaveM said:


> Now you tell me! -or- Had me fooled! Not sure which.


Sorry Dave. Personally, I think there is no impediment to its acceptance on the grounds of its melodic and harmonic idiom, which is why I raised the objections I did to your comments. The reason I didn't express an opinion on the thread's title question is because "should" has nothing to do with it. The language, notation conventions and aesthetic functions that might easily connect ragtime to the classical tradition are also irrelevant. Ragtime is not going to be considered classical music for mundane institutional reasons: It was written by the "wrong" people and it doesn't have enough technical challenge or pedagogical value to be taught at conservatories.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> This is an incorrigible opinion based upon mere 'feeling'. The debate over ragtime is old, but its detractors have been putting forward the same old objections unchanged since it began.


From the little that I have read of Joplin he was never referred to as a classical composer you have said he had classical training but he was self taught with some help from local teachers so I assume he was just had the rudiments of music I see nothing in ragtime that is remotely classical.
It has its own genre and is as much classical as Pop


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## Vasks

While I love ragtime (which for me is an amalgam of syncopated melodies and a march-like accompaniment), I can not say it is a "form" of Classical music. 

But I have always found it curious that Joplin (and musical theater composers like Kern and Porter) were included in such a publications as the Schwann catalogue and the Norton/Grove Encyclopedia. AND, Joplin was awarded posthumously a Pulitzer Prize.....hmmmm??? Apparently some consider those guys tangentially "Classical"


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## Neward Thelman

Why not? Sure. 

In a time of alternative truths, anything's possible. Of course, actual, historical knowledge - therefore, context - and music theory and analysis skills would quickly and definitively reveal and confirm Ragtime's stylistic place and affinity.

I've noticed that at many summer rock and roll festivals, they're calling flat-out, violent heavy metal 'music' jazz. Yep, heavy metal = jazz. It's all good.


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## insomniclassicac

Dan Ante said:


> From the little that I have read of Joplin he was never referred to as a classical composer you have said he had classical training but he was self taught with some help from local teachers so I assume he was just had the rudiments of music I see nothing in ragtime that is remotely classical.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Weiss



> Although young Joplin was said to have received some beginner's guidance from local teachers, it was Weiss who first introduced Joplin "to European art music," and the "European masters." [Rudi] Blesh writes that "the professor is said to have played the classics for him, and to have talked of the great composers, and especially of the famous operas."


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## Dan Ante

*@insomniclassicac*


> Although young Joplin was said to have received some beginner's guidance from local teachers, it was Weiss who first introduced Joplin "to European art music," and the "European masters." [Rudi] Blesh writes that "the professor is said to have played the classics for him, and to have talked of the great composers, and especially of the famous operas."


And your point is............


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> *@insomniclassicac*
> 
> And your point is............


That he had fairly extensive lessons from a European professor of music. There are several other composers who you likely would admit to the official classical canon who had a similar sort of music education.

Above you remarked that you see nothing remotely classical in ragtime. Well you are not looking hard enough. Ragtime is the first (or early) expression of African ideas of rhythm and melody allied with European harmony and that harmony is distinctly classical. Go and listen to Maple Leaf Rag and analyse its harmony. Methinks you are adding commentary on the basis of little reading and not much listening.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> That he had fairly extensive lessons from a European professor of music. There are several other composers who you likely would admit to the official classical canon who had a similar sort of music education.


I'm not sure what the point is. It's not the fact that one has a more or less education in classical music, it's more (though not entirely) what ends up being the primary influence and when I listen to Joplin or other ragtime I don't get the slightest impression that the classical education, such as it was, was the primary influence.



> Above you remarked that you see nothing remotely classical in ragtime. Well you are not looking hard enough. Ragtime is the first (or early) expression of African ideas of rhythm and melody allied with European harmony and that harmony is distinctly classical. Go and listen to Maple Leaf Rag and analyse its harmony. Methinks you are adding commentary on the basis of little reading and not much listening.


I said much the same thing as Dan. I think there may be a semantics factor going on here. One can listen to a music form such as rag and objectively look for elements that are similar to classical music. Or one can listen to, in this case, a number of rag works and determine whether they remind you in any way of classical music. If you are experienced in classical music, it doesn't take too long to make your own judgment. And it doesn't require having in-depth education in rag as you infer.

Apparently, you are satisfied that Rag is a form of classical music. Fwiw, I don't think you're in the majority.


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## Larkenfield

The ragtime I've heard has always been more African-American than European. The European influence was only a means to an end to refine and shape it because the spirit of the music had its roots in Black culture and not on another continent. But it was a blend of the two so it could sell sheet music, be played publicly and at home. Louise Gottschalk (d. 1869) had proceeded ragtime with Caribbean and other ethnic themes blended through European means, so ragtime was hardly new in that respect. African-Americans had culture and it was never completely sublimated by European influences. It's not mentioned enough how much ragtime was danced to because of its great syncopated and happy rhythms. It was social music to be enjoyed without false pretense and was essentially popular music. But Joplin's studies of European classical music probably helped him write it with a little something extra in some of its more sophisticated harmonies while remaining predominately African-American in its syncopation and spirit.

I doubt if Scott Joplin wrote this expecting it to be played at Carnegie Hall:


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## insomniclassicac

DaveM said:


> Apparently, you are satisfied that Rag is a form of classical music. Fwiw, I don't think you're in the majority.


Walk into any brick & mortar electronics store and you will invariably find discs of ragtime musicians sorted in the classical section. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


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## DaveM

insomniclassicac said:


> Walk into any brick & mortar electronics store and you will invariably find discs of ragtime musicians sorted in the classical section. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


Invariably? I frequented many a record store back in the day when they were plentiful. In my experience, the larger ones such as Tower Records had separate sections in the stacks for many different genres including rag because they had the space and the number of vinyl &/or CD recordings to justify it. It was in smaller stores that employees were challenged as to where to put the small handful of rag recordings they might have (which in the smaller stores were pretty much just Joplin) and I'm sure that it wasn't unusual to find them in or next to classical music.

In short, I don't think where employees in a record store put a few rag recordings determines what genre (other than ragtime itself) they should fit into.


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## Bulldog

DaveM said:


> In short, I don't think where employees in a record store put a few rag recordings determines what genre (other than ragtime itself) they should fit into.


Back in the day, I worked part-time in a music shop for a couple of years to get the significant employee discount. I remember that Joplin recordings were always placed in the classical section; management didn't know where else to put them. Overall, I'd say that putting Joplin and Classical together was mainly a case of ignorance. I did once recommend that a new category named ragtime be initiated - the answer was that there were already enough categories.


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## eugeneonagain

This thread is really a waste of time and effort. The evidence to show the strong connection between ragtime and similar mixtures of folk dances with art-music and art-music harmony - the Ländlers, jigs and what-have-you - seems to have no impact on people anxious to deny it. For what reason it's hard to say.


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## Larkenfield

In case this hasn't been brought up. It's very true that Scott Joplin recordings could be found in the classical music record bins. This was largely due to the Scott Joplin revival that took place in the 1970s and was fueled by the recordings Joshua Rifkin did for Nonesuch Records. That's where I bought my copy, in the CM section of the store, and the performances were terrific. They had something of an authentic or authoritative feel to them and seemed to capture the carefree spirit of the music.

Currently, Rifkin happens to be a Professor of Music at Boston University. So here was a classically trained pianist and musicologist playing ragtime in a somewhat classical style on these award-winning albums that sold like hot cakes, thus the association between classical music and ragtime was strengthened, and there was mounting scholarly interest in Scott Joplin's genius and background. Since then, ragtime has been presented more as concert music than dance music, though this wasn't originally the case.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Rifkin

Because of the variety of influences in his music, I view it as being beyond any strict labels or categories rather than trying to force it into one genre or another. This is upbeat and joyous music and Joplin was a wonderful composer whose music continues to live long after his era, perhaps some of the happiest music ever. It was that well written with great help from his classical music education that many years later attracted the interest of a serious musicologist and fan such as Rifkin. The music was meant to be upbeat be never intended to be played too fast.


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## joen_cph

There´s also the aspect of Joplin writing an opera that was naturally categorized as classical. As regards Rifkin´s LPs, he plays the ragtimes in a very disciplined, 'classical-sounding' way, further facilitating the pieces into classical labelling, but I much prefer a wilder, spontaneous-sounding or more nuanced approach.

I agree that they are dances and as such they can be worked through as classical pieces. Checked if someone has written a _Symphonic Ragtime_ for orchestra, apparently not, though I seem to remember that there is a concertante piece by that name. Nothing wrong with such a concept, I think.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> This thread is really a waste of time and effort...


It's not the first or last we will take part in.


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## Bulldog

eugeneonagain said:


> This thread is really a waste of time and effort. The evidence to show the strong connection between ragtime and similar mixtures of folk dances with art-music and art-music harmony - the Ländlers, jigs and what-have-you - seems to have no impact on people anxious to deny it. For what reason it's hard to say.


I don't deny these connections. I just think it's best for ragtime to be its own category. That okay with you?


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> That he had fairly extensive lessons from a European professor of music. There are several other composers who you likely would admit to the official classical canon who had a similar sort of music education.
> 
> Above you remarked that you see nothing remotely classical in ragtime. Well you are not looking hard enough. Ragtime is the first (or early) expression of African ideas of rhythm and melody allied with European harmony and that harmony is distinctly classical. Go and listen to Maple Leaf Rag and analyse its harmony. Methinks you are adding commentary on the basis of little reading and not much listening.


I did not know you were aka insomniclassical.

For a start the amount of listening that I have of classical music extends over 50 years of concert going and not once has a piece of Boogy Woogy or Ragtime been on the program have you experienced the opposite? 
Does having some lessons from some European prof of music make Joplin a classical composer how many classical works did he compose?
What is this African harmony that is distinctly classical and is it absent from all other types of music.
You say I am not looking hard enough at ragtime to see the connection I don't have to I have Ears.
For the record the music stores that I frequented had only classical music in the classical music section.


----------



## fluteman

eugeneonagain said:


> That he had fairly extensive lessons from a European professor of music. There are several other composers who you likely would admit to the official classical canon who had a similar sort of music education.
> 
> Above you remarked that you see nothing remotely classical in ragtime. Well you are not looking hard enough. Ragtime is the first (or early) expression of African ideas of rhythm and melody allied with European harmony and that harmony is distinctly classical. Go and listen to Maple Leaf Rag and analyse its harmony. Methinks you are adding commentary on the basis of little reading and not much listening.


Very, very well said. I once did an analysis of Joplin's rags for a college music course (not the most complicated music, I wrote a rag myself as part of the project, but it lacked Joplin's inventiveness, of course). That doesn't make me the world's greatest expert, neither does the fact that I've played so many of them or listened to so many recordings (Rifkin's is not a favorite, though I respect and appreciate his work in returning them to popularity).

But one thing all of this brought home to me is how differently we look at certain music of the past from how it was seen originally. Joplin's rags were written in an era before radio and at the earliest stages of the phonograph, when people still wanted fun tunes that were technically easy to play on their pianos. That was their place in the music world of their time. But his work remains highly popular today, because working within that exceedingly narrow, limited framework, he found imaginative, subtle ways to make these pieces more substantial and interesting. And to do that, he looked almost entirely to European classical music traditions. For that reason, Joplin's music really stands apart from the ragtime tradition in general and deserves to be discussed separately, even if he was one of the most popular ragtimers of his day.


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## Larkenfield

Scott Joplin's A Concert Waltz for his beloved wife Bethena (I was charmed by the presentation):


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> I did not know you were aka insomniclassical.
> 
> For a start the amount of listening that I have of classical music extends over 50 years of concert going and not once has a piece of Boogy Woogy or Ragtime been on the program have you experienced the opposite?
> Does having some lessons from some European prof of music make Joplin a classical composer how many classical works did he compose?
> *What is this African harmony that is distinctly classical *and is it absent from all other types of music.
> You say I am not looking hard enough at ragtime to see the connection I don't have to I have Ears.
> For the record the music stores that I frequented had only classical music in the classical music section.


See, the part I bolded is because you didn't read what I wrote and are blinded by your opinion. I never referred to any 'African harmony' but European harmony allied to African rhythmic ideas. It is basically a syncopated march and the march is hardly 'not classical'.
Even though the blues (secular gospel in many ways) was already extant around the same period, ragtime doesn't follow the same trajectory. The music is structured like classical works, many waltzes, polkas. Should we also say that Smetana's or Stravinsky's use of the polka - a folk dance - is not classical music? If not, why not? If it is, then again, why?

Bulldog suggested that it should be a category of its own. Okay, but not much music, if any, is self-generating. So references will have to be made to its ingredients, its influences and history. Either it is largely popular music - but then explanation is needed for the harmonic content, the structures and the length of some works (see Larkenfield's post above), all of which differ from the average popular song of the day - or it is something else.

As far as I am concerned Joplin, and the ragtime composers who followed a similar model, were producing what was among America's first true contributions to art-music rather than those merely mimicking European art music. It has an American voice. Joplin's _Magnetic Rag_ is American classical music.


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## joen_cph

Dan Ante said:


> I did not know you were aka insomniclassical.
> 
> For a start the amount of listening that I have of classical music extends over 50 years of concert going and not once has a piece of Boogy Woogy or Ragtime been on the program have you experienced the opposite?
> Does having some lessons from some European prof of music make Joplin a classical composer how many classical works did he compose?
> What is this African harmony that is distinctly classical and is it absent from all other types of music.
> You say I am not looking hard enough at ragtime to see the connection I don't have to I have Ears.
> For the record the music stores that I frequented had only classical music in the classical music section.


Actually the list of Joplin compositions comprises traces of a late symphony and a late piano concerto, plus waltzes and marches. The bigger pieces seem to have been lost or unfinished, but the symphony was announced i NYT. It would have been really interesting to have.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Scott_Joplin


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> See, the part I bolded is because you didn't read what I wrote and are blinded by your opinion. I never referred to any 'African harmony' but European harmony allied to African rhythmic ideas. It is basically a syncopated march and the march is hardly 'not classical'.


Regarding my reference to Harmony I should have double quoted so here is your post 112 


eugeneonagain said:


> Joplin very much approached his rags and similar pieces from a standpoint of classical style, he had classical training. Jazz, though later rather than earlier, has sometimes played down the link with ragtime, though both of them share the blend of African rhythms and 'call/response' mixed with European ideas about harmony. Ragtime's harmony structure, particularly that of Joplin, and he was widely imitated, is very classical.





> Even though the blues (secular gospel in many ways) was already extant around the same period, ragtime doesn't follow the same trajectory. The music is structured like classical works, many waltzes, polkas. Should we also say that Smetana's or Stravinsky's use of the polka - a folk dance - is not classical music? If not, why not? If it is, then again, why?
> 
> Bulldog suggested that it should be a category of its own. Okay, but not much music, if any, is self-generating. So references will have to be made to its ingredients, its influences and history. Either it is largely popular music - but then explanation is needed for the harmonic content, the structures and the length of some works (see Larkenfield's post above), all of which differ from the average popular song of the day - or it is something else.
> 
> As far as I am concerned Joplin, and the ragtime composers who followed a similar model, were producing what was among America's first true contributions to art-music rather than those merely mimicking European art music. It has an American voice. Joplin's _Magnetic Rag_ is American classical music.


So I ask
1.	What do you mean by classical training? Because if you say that a few lessons from a classical musician is classical training then I was classically trained which is not the case.
2.	What is this European idea about harmony that makes ragtime classical, please show an example and is it absent from all other non-classical music.
3.	You mention 'Syncopated Marches' and say they are "hardly not classical" do you mean that a syncopated March is classical music or that any march is classical?
4.	The reference by a classical composer of a Waltz, Polka, Folk, Gospel, etc in a composition does not make them (Waltz, Polka, Folk, Gospel, etc) classical music this is not saying that a composition built around one of them in say a symphony or tone poem is not classical.
5.	So Joplin's American voice is American Art Music fair enough but please don't call it western Classical Music


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## eugeneonagain

I'm bored of repeating it to you. You're incorrigible.


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## pokeefe0001

Dan Ante said:


> 3.	You mention 'Syncopated Marches' and say they are "hardly not classical" do you mean that a syncopated March is classical music or that any march is classical?


There are obviously many marches, syncopated or not, that are not classical. But a march, syncopated or not, _can_ be classical. My quoting non-Joplin music doesn't prove anything (and neither does this entire thread!) but going back to Gottschalk for a moment, here is a syncopated march that (in my book) is "classical":







Dan Ante said:


> 5.	So Joplin's American voice is American Art Music fair enough but please don't call it western Classical Music


Then perhaps it is the term "classical" that is the problem. The term "classical" (as a genre rather than the musical period of Mozart and Haydn) doesn't have a strict definition. I, for one, choose to equate "classical music" with "art music" and "American Art Music" fits very neatly within my definition of "Western Classical Music". So I will ignore your request and continue to ragtime can be (in the hands of the right composers) be western classical music.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> I'm bored of repeating it to you. You're incorrigible.


I am only looking for answers to your claims, I can only assume you don't know the answers.


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## Larkenfield

Marches can be found in classical music, but I've never heard any of them swing with the continual swinging syncopation like the music of Scott Joplin or James Reese Europe. Europe's music was a sensation because of it during WW1, and I consider the lively intensity of that swing as being highly characteristic of the Afro-American composers and arrangers.

The synchopation found in most classical music is usually of an entirely different nature, not quite as loose or as uninhibited. On the other hand, James Reese Europe's band during the era of ragtime swung with infectious syncopation like crazy throughout an entire arrangement and not just a little here and a little there. I think of him as one of the geniuses of ragtime syncopation and it usually had an immediate public appeal. What a setback for Black culture when he was killed by a resentful band member.






Handel's syncopation:


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> I am only looking for answers to your claims, I can only assume you don't know the answers.


You assume wrongly. I've given them to you multiple times. You can take a horse to water...


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## pokeefe0001

Well, moving from ragtime to jazz-ish classical music to (hopefully) make a point, Darius Milhaud's La creation du monde




has some sections that absolutely swing but I doubt anybody would say it's not "classical music". It's certainly not true jazz or Gunther Schuller's Third Steam Music - no improvisation.

So if French swinging jazz-inspired music can be considered "classical" why not ragtime?


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> You assume wrongly. I've given them to you multiple times. You can take a horse to water...


OK I would hate to see how you handle an exam paper. bye


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> OK I would hate to see how you handle an exam paper. bye


In exactly the same way: state facts, produce an argument... If the person marking it has an agenda there's little I can do about that.

On the other hand this isn't an exam paper and I shouldn't have to do all the work myself. I'm not to blame for your rudimentary knowledge of ragtime am I?


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> In exactly the same way: state facts, produce an argument... If the person marking it has an agenda there's little I can do about that.
> 
> On the other hand this isn't an exam paper and I shouldn't have to do all the work myself. I'm not to blame for your rudimentary knowledge of ragtime am I?


What was that you said about a Horse!


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## eugeneonagain

No, that's not applicable here. There's no gotcha. Why can't you just leave it alone?


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> No, that's not applicable here. There's no gotcha. Why can't you just leave it alone?


Certainly old chap...


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## DaveM

For all the arguments trying to fit the square peg of ragtime into the round hole of classical music, I am still willing to bet that African-Americans around the glory days of ragtime on hearing that someone wanted to classify it as classical music, would say 'Are you frickin' kidding me? That's our music!'


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## Dan Ante

DaveM said:


> For all the arguments trying to fit the square peg of ragtime into the round hole of classical music, I am still willing to bet that African-Americans around the glory days of ragtime on hearing that someone wanted to classify it as classical music, would say 'Are you frickin' kidding me? That's our music!'


Yeh well it takes all sorts. Personally I don't see why Country and Western shouldn't be classed as classical..


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## tortkis

DaveM said:


> For all the arguments trying to fit the square peg of ragtime into the round hole of classical music, I am still willing to bet that African-Americans around the glory days of ragtime on hearing that someone wanted to classify it as classical music, would say 'Are you frickin' kidding me? That's our music!'


Scott Joplin "considered ragtime a permanent and serious branch of classical music". - Britannica
"Weiss' influence may be the foundation of Joplin's desire for recognition as a classical composer." - Edward Berlin
"Joplin wrote his rags as "classical" music in miniature form" - Wikipedia


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Regarding my reference to Harmony I should have double quoted so here is your post 112
> 
> So I ask
> 1.	What do you mean by classical training? Because if you say that a few lessons from a classical musician is classical training then I was classically trained which is not the case.
> 2.	What is this European idea about harmony that makes ragtime classical, please show an example and is it absent from all other non-classical music.
> 3.	You mention 'Syncopated Marches' and say they are "hardly not classical" do you mean that a syncopated March is classical music or that any march is classical?
> 4.	The reference by a classical composer of a Waltz, Polka, Folk, Gospel, etc in a composition does not make them (Waltz, Polka, Folk, Gospel, etc) classical music this is not saying that a composition built around one of them in say a symphony or tone poem is not classical.
> 5.	So Joplin's American voice is American Art Music fair enough but please don't call it western Classical Music


Ugh. I wish I could dig out the college paper I wrote on Joplin rags. Maybe I'll find it some day and write a longer post here. (I know, you wait with breathless anticipation. ;-)). Here I'll only say that not only did he use some inventive harmonies based on the innovations of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (even Chopin) but he used a lot of creative ideas that had nothing to do with harmony. (I did a full harmonic analysis of one rag, I'll post about that if I find the paper.) One example: Nearly all of his rags are based on the same strict, classical structural plan. In my paper, I cited one rag that follows this plan almost exactly (but not quite). However, he makes at least one or two significant and imaginative variations in this plan in nearly every rag, and a very significant departure in a few, Bethena, which is linked above, being an obvious example, as it is a waltz. Haydn does the same in his string quartets, using strict structural patterns but with dramatic exceptions everywhere. An important syncopated figure Joplin repeatedly uses as a fundamental part of many of his melodies, the sixteenth-eighth-sixteenth note triplet, is a device used to great effect by Beethoven to create rhythmic energy and forward momentum in his symphonies. Beethoven didn't always use them as a fundamental part of his melodies, but listen to the third theme of the third movement of the Pastoral Symphony, played by the solo oboe, with the quarter, two tied quarter, quarter note triplet figures, leading to a jolly, rustic dance. The same syncopated triplet Joplin uses. This is the unbuttoned, fun, good-humored Beethoven having a good time, a very important facet of his artistic personality.

Scott Joplin takes that syncopated triplet and uses it extensively as a basic building block, since good-humored, energetic fun is a major facet (but far from the only one) of his artistic personality too. No, he doesn't have the entire emotional range of Beethoven, at least in his piano rags, but he manages to bring in a lot of emotional range, including the moving pathos that we so closely associate with Beethoven, considering the strict limits Joplin needs to work within: short, easy to play piano pieces.

Finally, why the demand "please don't call it western classical music"? Does that offend or worry you in some way? Are you afraid some sacred cathedral of European repertoire will be polluted by lowly, uncultured outside influences? That isn't how art works.


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## gardibolt

Ragtime is quite obviously in the structural form of a classical march. So let's take a step back to look at the middle ground: are Sousa marches classical music?
If Beethoven writes a march (e.g. WoO 18 and 19 and 20) and Sousa writes a march _in precisely the same form as Beethoven_, why is Beethoven writing classical music and Sousa not doing so? Beethoven's not as good at it as Sousa, for that matter.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> Ugh. I wish I could dig out the college paper I wrote on Joplin rags. Maybe I'll find it some day and write a longer post here. (I know, you wait with breathless anticipation. ;-)). Here I'll only say that not only did he use some inventive harmonies based on the innovations of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven (even Chopin) but he used a lot of creative ideas that had nothing to do with harmony. (I did a full harmonic analysis of one rag, I'll post about that if I find the paper.) One example: Nearly all of his rags are based on the same strict, classical structural plan. In my paper, I cited one rag that follows this plan almost exactly (but not quite). However, he makes at least one or two significant and imaginative variations in this plan in nearly every rag, and a very significant departure in a few, Bethena, which is linked above, being an obvious example, as it is a waltz. Haydn does the same in his string quartets, using strict structural patterns but with dramatic exceptions everywhere. An important syncopated figure Joplin repeatedly uses as a fundamental part of many of his melodies, the sixteenth-eighth-sixteenth note triplet, is a device used to great effect by Beethoven to create rhythmic energy and forward momentum in his symphonies. Beethoven didn't always use them as a fundamental part of his melodies, but listen to the third theme of the third movement of the Pastoral Symphony, played by the solo oboe, with the quarter, two tied quarter, quarter note triplet figures, leading to a jolly, rustic dance. The same syncopated triplet Joplin uses. This is the unbuttoned, fun, good-humored Beethoven having a good time, a very important facet of his artistic personality.
> 
> Scott Joplin takes that syncopated triplet and uses it extensively as a basic building block, since good-humored, energetic fun is a major facet (but far from the only one) of his artistic personality too. No, he doesn't have the entire emotional range of Beethoven, at least in his piano rags, but he manages to bring in a lot of emotional range, including the moving pathos that we so closely associate with Beethoven, considering the strict limits Joplin needs to work within: short, easy to play piano pieces.
> 
> Finally, why the demand "please don't call it western classical music"? Does that offend or worry you in some way? Are you afraid some sacred cathedral of European repertoire will be polluted by lowly, uncultured outside influences? That isn't how art works.


I do wish you would use Crotchet, quaver, semi quaver etc. 
I still do not see anything that is unique to ragtime and not present in other forms of music that singles it out to be classical, in other words based on your above post any jazz improvisation could be termed classical. 
If you start to include these other genres (pop, rock, heavy metal musicals etc) into Western Classical Music you will create a mongrel, much better to either create another sub form of Classical (American Classical Music) or just leave ragtime where it belongs "Ragtime" if its good enough for others why not you? 
I am sure any of the great composers could make a classical composition out of a Joplin Rag, they have done that type of thing in the past with folk music but that does not make Joplin a classical composer. 
*Remember its not what you do it's the way that you do it so,*
Taking all of my remarks and the oppositions remarks into account I am posting the Jacque Loussier trio playing Bach's d min fugue and I ask you is this classical???


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## Bulldog

Dan Ante said:


> Taking all of my remarks and the oppositions remarks into account I am posting the Jacque Loussier trio playing Bach's d min fugue and I ask you is this classical???


Sounds like jazz to me. How about you?


----------



## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> I do wish you would use Crotchet, quaver, semi quaver etc.
> I still do not see anything that is unique to ragtime and not present in other forms of music that singles it out to be classical, in other words based on your above post any jazz improvisation could be termed classical.
> If you start to include these other genres (pop, rock, heavy metal musicals etc) into Western Classical Music you will create a mongrel, much better to either create another sub form of Classical (American Classical Music) or just leave ragtime where it belongs "Ragtime" if its good enough for others why not you?
> I am sure any of the great composers could make a classical composition out of a Joplin Rag, they have done that type of thing in the past with folk music but that does not make Joplin a classical composer.
> *Remember its not what you do it's the way that you do it so,*
> Taking all of my remarks and the oppositions remarks into account I am posting the Jacque Loussier trio playing Bach's d min fugue and I ask you is this classical???


I am a big Jacques Loussier fan, and have been since childhood. But most of what he does (I have many of his CDs but far from all, so Loussier experts don't need to cite exceptions to me) is play music written by others (those others primarily being J.S. Bach but also Satie and others) that isn't jazz with elements characteristic of jazz added or mixed in. I've known some hard core jazz enthusiasts who angrily refuse to acknowledge that Loussier is a jazz musician at all. That's ridiculous to me. He obviously is a fleet-fingered virtuoso jazz performer regardless of whether you consider his Bach interpretations to be jazz. I do think the interpretations by John Lewis, indisputably one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, of Bach's Goldberg Variations are better than anything Loussier has done. But neither is remotely in the same category as a composer of original innovative material such as Joplin, if categories are your thing, which they seem to be.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> I am a big Jacques Loussier fan, and have been since childhood. But most of what he does (I have many of his CDs but far from all, so Loussier experts don't need to cite exceptions to me) is play music written by others (those others primarily being J.S. Bach but also Satie and others) that isn't jazz with elements characteristic of jazz added or mixed in. I've known some hard core jazz enthusiasts who angrily refuse to acknowledge that Loussier is a jazz musician at all. That's ridiculous to me. He obviously is a fleet-fingered virtuoso jazz performer regardless of whether you consider his Bach interpretations to be jazz. I do think the interpretations by John Lewis, indisputably one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time, of Bach's Goldberg Variations are better than anything Loussier has done. But neither is remotely in the same category as a composer of original innovative material such as Joplin, if categories are your thing, which they seem to be.


Are you serious of course categories are my thing all of life is categorised how on earth can you go from day to day without them. 
Loussier is playing jazz no doubt about it, jazz musicians play stuff written by other people all the time from the classical repertoire to tin pan ally and you say that is not jazz??
I would venture to say that the other composers mentioned in your post far exceed the capabilities of Joplin.


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Are you serious of course categories are my thing all of life is categorised how on earth can you go from day to day without them.
> Loussier is playing jazz no doubt about it, jazz musicians play stuff written by other people all the time from the classical repertoire to tin pan ally and you say that is not jazz??
> I would venture to say that the other composers mentioned in your post far exceed the capabilities of Joplin.


Categories should be your servant, not your master. And I would venture to say that both John Lewis and Jacques Loussier themselves would be quick to acknowledge Scott Joplin was a far greater composer than either of them. And as I said, I'm a very big fan of both.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> Categories should be your servant, not your master. And I would venture to say that both John Lewis and Jacques Loussier themselves would be quick to acknowledge Scott Joplin was a far greater composer than either of them. And as I said, I'm a very big fan of both.


I thought we were talking composers Satie and Bach compared to Joplin not musicians Joplin to Loussier and Lewis, Joplin would lose on both accounts.
Servant and Master what are you on about, all of you posts are filled with catagories come on mate get real!


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> I thought we were talking composers Satie and Bach compared to Joplin not musicians Joplin to Loussier and Lewis, Joplin would lose on both accounts.
> Servant and Master what are you on about, all of you posts are filled with catagories come on mate get real!


If we are looking to compare like to like, I think the better comparison for Scott Joplin would be George Gershwin, or perhaps John Philip Sousa, whom someone mentioned above (ed.: It was gardibolt, who made a good observation). In each case, the composer did not invent, but so elevated a seemingly humble musical genre with such imagination and sophistication as to make it something very different from what one would have thought it was before. That's rarely done.

I suppose more recently you could argue Leonard Bernstein did that with West Side Story, which many opera stars around the world consider an important part of their repertoire, and even more recently Lin Manuel Miranda with Hamilton, but I think the impact of those works is more on musical theater than western music per se. In Bernstein's case, he is clearly a successor to Gershwin. Anyway, these are major accomplishments, including Joplin's.


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## Nate Miller

It doesn't really matter whether or not the technical aspects of ragtime can be found in what we are calling classical music

Ragtime emerged as a folk music

Trying to reclassify ragtime music now is revisionist history. That's not how it happened and not how the players that developed the style saw it.

Think about where ragtime music originated....was it concert hall music, or entertainment for a crowd at a bar?

this isn't a commentary on the validity of the music, but ragtime music was played in different venues than what we are presently calling classical music


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## fluteman

Nate Miller said:


> It doesn't really matter whether or not the technical aspects of ragtime can be found in what we are calling classical music
> 
> Ragtime emerged as a folk music
> 
> Trying to reclassify ragtime music now is revisionist history. That's not how it happened and not how the players that developed the style saw it.
> 
> Think about where ragtime music originated....was it concert hall music, or entertainment for a crowd at a bar?
> 
> this isn't a commentary on the validity of the music, but ragtime music was played in different venues than what we are presently calling classical music


As I've said repeatedly in this thread, you really have to consider Joplin apart from the ragtime genre generally, as he did use it, but his music rose to a more serious and profound artistic level, as did Gershwin's with jazz and swing, through the use of western classical music principles and traditions. Joplin deserves a lot of additional recognition and respect for that reason. Hey, if it upsets you to call him a classical composer then don't, though I doubt you would call Bartok a folk music composer, even though that's what a great deal of his music is.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> If we are looking to compare like to like, I think the better comparison for Scott Joplin would be George Gershwin, or perhaps John Philip Sousa, whom someone mentioned above (ed.: It was gardibolt, who made a good observation). In each case, the composer did not invent, but so elevated a seemingly humble musical genre with such imagination and sophistication as to make it something very different from what one would have thought it was before. That's rarely done.
> 
> I suppose more recently you could argue Leonard Bernstein did that with West Side Story, which many opera stars around the world consider an important part of their repertoire, and even more recently Lin Manuel Miranda with Hamilton, but I think the impact of those works is more on musical theater than western music per se. In Bernstein's case, he is clearly a successor to Gershwin. Anyway, these are major accomplishments, including Joplin's.


No I am not interested in comparisons of American composers although your post maybe interesting what has it to do with making Joplin a classical composer?


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> No I am not interested in comparisons of American composers although your post maybe interesting what has it to do with making Joplin a classical composer?


Well, all right then. The composers I've been discussing are uniquely and distinctively American, no doubt about it. New Zealand has its own musical heritage and traditions, and no doubt its own composers who draw on those traditions. I've heard the music of one of them, but I just can't remember his name, and my cd collection is in storage. My apologies.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> Well, all right then. The composers I've been discussing are uniquely and distinctively American, no doubt about it. New Zealand has its own musical heritage and traditions, and no doubt its own composers who draw on those traditions. I've heard the music of one of them, but I just can't remember his name, and my cd collection is in storage. My apologies.


Ours are probably not known to you but off hand you may have heard of these: 
Gareth Farr Douglas Lilburn Edwin Carr John Psathas
Lilburn studied under Vaughn Williams and his early works were in RvW style but later works went over to the dark side.
I still cant see what this has to do with recategorising Joplin as classical unless you want to form a separate American Classical category, if the establishment concidered him classical why is he still a Boogy Woogy (aka Ragtime) man?


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## eugeneonagain

Boogie-Woogie is not Ragtime. Stride piano is the closest offshoot to the leaping bass style of ragtime and even then only that particular facet. How can anyone take it seriously if you come out with this sort of nonsense?

What, btw, is 'the dark side'?


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## Pat Fairlea

It's interesting (to me, at any rate) that a thread that started off considering categories of music (ragtime/classical) has focussed down to a debate around Scott Joplin. Personally, I don't think the presence or absence of syncopation or a specific 'beat' matters a damn. Isn't it more about the intended audience and purpose of the music? Quite a few of the folks we would recognise as 'classical' composers also wrote music for a general audience to play and enjoy out of the concert/recital context. Gershwin has been mentioned several times already. I think a good comparison is Cecile Chaminade. She wrote works that are clearly in the 'classical' category (e.g. her Piano Trios, Concertino for Flute & Orchestra) and a lot of songs that are clearly 'something else' - short works in a popular idiom that are enjoyable to play and to hear, but with no pretensions to great depth of meaning. Joplin's 'classical rags' are like Chaminade's songs. What Joplin was not, in my uninformed view, was a jazz composer. His rags lack the spontaneity and invention of, for example, the great Eubie Blake.

And at the risk of attracting incoming fire from Ao'tearoa, I'm not a fan of categories, despite having a background in the biological sciences. In the case of music, categories lead to discussions that take our attention away from the music itself and, especially, lead to CM devotees under-rating musicians and composers whose chosen milieu falls outside the concert hall. Personally I think Dave Brubeck was one of the great composers/arrangers of the last 100 years and would rank Stephane Grapelli alongside the greatest of violinists. The converse categorisation is one of the things that keeps young people from sampling CM, too. "Classical music? That's for old people". Then, like my rock-music-fan son, they chance to hear Moussorgsky in full flight for the first time and realise that it's all just music, and that some of it is wonderful. And some of it is ragtime.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> Boogie-Woogie is not Ragtime. Stride piano is the closest offshoot to the leaping bass style of ragtime and even then only that particular facet. How can anyone take it seriously if you come out with this sort of nonsense?
> 
> What, btw, is 'the dark side'?


Wow I thought you wanted to call it a day but I must admit you are very astute have you worked out yet what makes Ragtime classical or are you still working on it.
Oh the dark side Electronic music via a computer.


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Ours are probably not known to you but off hand you may have heard of these:
> Gareth Farr Douglas Lilburn Edwin Carr John Psathas
> Lilburn studied under Vaughn Williams and his early works were in RvW style but later works went over to the dark side.
> I still cant see what this has to do with recategorising Joplin as classical unless you want to form a separate American Classical category, if the establishment concidered him classical why is he still a Boogy Woogy (aka Ragtime) man?


Look, I've made the points I wanted to make in this thread, including that the whole question of what is and what is not "classical music" is not of great concern to me (ymmv), and substantiated my musical points as best I could off the top of my head. I enjoy this discussion group and respect the posters here very much, but I don't have the time or energy to go further into these things. I happen to have done some research and analysis of Scott Joplin's music in college long ago, and my tough and exacting music professor liked it, but that doesn't mean I can remember it all now or am willing to try to reconstruct all the bases for my conclusions. So you can just disagree with me, or do your own research an analysis and agree or continue to disagree with me, as you wish.
Only the name Douglas Lilburn sounds familiar to me of those you list, and I don't even remember why. I'll have to look into New Zealand music again, it's been a while. Feel free to post links to it and educate us about it (both its traditions and current composers) if you want, I'm sure most here are far from New Zealand and more than a few would be interested. Peace.


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> Wow I thought you wanted to call it a day but I must admit you are very astute have you worked out yet what makes Ragtime classical or are you still working on it.
> Oh the dark side Electronic music via a computer.


I think perhaps I'm a bit more elastic to some of the other opinions here on both sides, that although ragtime demonstrates elements of classical forms, in some ways it is its own thing. In this respect I lack your rigid certainty.


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## Dan Ante

Pat Fairlea said:


> It's interesting (to me, at any rate) that a thread that started off considering categories of music (ragtime/classical) has focussed down to a debate around Scott Joplin. Personally, I don't think the presence or absence of syncopation or a specific 'beat' matters a damn. Isn't it more about the intended audience and purpose of the music? Quite a few of the folks we would recognise as 'classical' composers also wrote music for a general audience to play and enjoy out of the concert/recital context. Gershwin has been mentioned several times already. I think a good comparison is Cecile Chaminade. She wrote works that are clearly in the 'classical' category (e.g. her Piano Trios, Concertino for Flute & Orchestra) and a lot of songs that are clearly 'something else' - short works in a popular idiom that are enjoyable to play and to hear, but with no pretensions to great depth of meaning. Joplin's 'classical rags' are like Chaminade's songs. What Joplin was not, in my uninformed view, was a jazz composer. His rags lack the spontaneity and invention of, for example, the great Eubie Blake.
> 
> And at the risk of attracting incoming fire from Ao'tearoa, I'm not a fan of categories, despite having a background in the biological sciences. In the case of music, categories lead to discussions that take our attention away from the music itself and, especially, lead to CM devotees under-rating musicians and composers whose chosen milieu falls outside the concert hall. Personally I think Dave Brubeck was one of the great composers/arrangers of the last 100 years and would rank Stephane Grapelli alongside the greatest of violinists. The converse categorisation is one of the things that keeps young people from sampling CM, too. "Classical music? That's for old people". Then, like my rock-music-fan son, they chance to hear Moussorgsky in full flight for the first time and realise that it's all just music, and that some of it is wonderful. And some of it is ragtime.


No fire from me Pat I agree with you views of Brubeck and I love Grappelli, I am an ex engineer and as such had to rely on categories, I am not sure how Joplin got into it perhaps he was the best at ragtime, but no one can point to any specific thing that he does and is not present in other types of music and say that is why his music is classical, I would venture that the vast majority of classical lovers would not class him that way.


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## Bulldog

Dan Ante: I'm not clear on where you would place ragtime. Classical? Jazz? Something else?


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## eugeneonagain

I've got an idea where it could be placed, but the moderators might disagree.


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## Larkenfield

Naughty naughty, Eugene


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> I think perhaps I'm a bit more elastic to some of the other opinions here on both sides, that although ragtime demonstrates elements of classical forms, in some ways it is its own thing. In this respect I lack your rigid certainty.


Wh-a-a-at? After all the arguments against the premise that ragtime is not classical, now '_in some ways it is its own thing_'? I'll take 'rigid certainty' over lack of transparency anytime.


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## eugeneonagain

DaveM said:


> Wh-a-a-at? After all the arguments against the premise that ragtime is not classical, now '_in some ways it is its own thing_'? I'll take 'rigid certainty' over lack of transparency anytime.


It's not that. I'm pretty firm in my own opinion, so I'm not doing any sort of u-turn. I just see merit in some of the views - like that of Bulldog - which see a less clear relationship and ragtime as a little genre on its own; with its various potential influences.

I don't think the opposite of rigid certainty is 'lack of transparency'. Rigid certainty is probably not the best position in matters like this, it just leads to a sort of obstinacy. Which isn't helped when it is predicated upon limited of knowledge of the subject.


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> It's not that. I'm pretty firm in my own opinion, so I'm not doing any sort of u-turn. I just see merit in some of the views - like that of Bulldog - which see a less clear relationship and ragtime as a little genre on its own; with its various potential influences.
> 
> I don't think the opposite of rigid certainty is 'lack of transparency'. Rigid certainty is probably not the best position in matters like this, it just leads to a sort of obstinacy. Which isn't helped when it is predicated upon limited of knowledge of the subject.


I don't see any difference between what Dan, myself, a few others and what Bulldog has said which is that ragtime does not fall under the category of classical music -a valid response to the OP. The premise that the value of one's certainty on the subject will rest on one's knowledge of the subject as judged by those who don't agree with that certainty, especially when terms such as 'obstinacy' and 'incorrigible' are used, smacks of elitism, if not arrogance.

I would say that one does not have to have a degree in musicology to offer a valid opinion. And that familiarity with classical music of the last 300-400 years -including some familiarity with jazz and popular music, which most of us have unless we've been living under a rock- would be enough to be certain about one's opinion on this subject.


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## Larkenfield

How about this: Scott Joplin was an African-American composer who wrote popular dance music, concert works, and opera.

Those who try to pigeonhole this genius as being only one thing should be flogged within an inch of their lives with the rolled-up sheet music of _Maple Leaf Rag_. He cannot be conveniently crammed into one genre or another exclusively.

For me, Joplin's entire_ Treemonisha_ is the greatest American opera ever devised. Not only was it the first of such outstandingly high quality, based upon Black culture, but it was authentic because it was written by an Afro-American born on this soil who was also influenced by the traditions of European opera before Gerswhin was even a teenager. It's brilliant.


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## gardibolt

The emphasis on Joplin is a little misguided. Others like Joseph Lamb and James Scott and Joe Jordan and plenty of others were writing in the same milieu as Joplin, and were just as classically-informed, although they don't have his notoriety. None of them tried to elevate it with an opera like he did, so far as I know, but that doesn't mean they weren't using classical forms for their music, which they absolutely were. The critical difference is the addition of syncopation as a primary element. I don't see that as sufficient to take them out of the classical form. To my mind, they're writing in a much more classical mode than someone like Stockhausen.


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## JeffD

Its another case of fuzzy sets. The border between ragtime and classical is not crisp. That doesn't mean there isn't a border. Some ragtime most people would consider classical, some ragtime nobody would consider classical, some classical most people would say seems at least to predict the syncopation of ragtime, some classical does not.

Syncopation itself, similar to sight and flight, has evolved from a number of independent sources, classical among them.

My only rigorous argument would be that many conflate "classical" with "serious", or "good", or "worthy of attention". So that any music that is so strong enough to take seriously and rewards close attention, somehow in the minds of many, needs to be called classical. That would, to me, be a mistake.


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## fluteman

JeffD said:


> Its another case of fuzzy sets. The border between ragtime and classical is not crisp. That doesn't mean there isn't a border. Some ragtime most people would consider classical, some ragtime nobody would consider classical, some classical most people would say seems at least to predict the syncopation of ragtime, some classical does not.
> 
> Syncopation itself, similar to sight and flight, has evolved from a number of independent sources, classical among them.
> 
> My only rigorous argument would be that many conflate "classical" with "serious", or "good", or "worthy of attention". So that any music that is so strong enough to take seriously and rewards close attention, somehow in the minds of many, needs to be called classical. That would, to me, be a mistake.


Yes, but in addition to the worthy comments of Larkenfield and Gardibolt above, I would add that there is more to Scott Joplin's music than ragtime. (Lamb and Scott, mentioned by Gardibolt, are worth checking out, but if I remember correctly, their output is not the scope or size of Joplin's.) Treemonisha, discussed and linked by Larkenfield, is indeed a great work, and owes an obvious debt to the Gilbert & Sullivan operettas in many ways, and like those, to the Italian bel canto opera tradition. It looks more back to the 19th century than ahead to the 20th, and is much more of a classical opera than Porgy and Bess (which is still the greatest American opera for me, though Treemonisha is worthy to be mentioned in the same sentence) no matter how narrowly you define "classical". 
I don't know how that impacts the debate here, as Treemonisha has many characteristic ragtime melodies and other elements (and a delightful barbershop quartet in Act 2 as I listen to it) but on the whole is a classical 19th-century Italian style opera and not really a ragtime piece at all. I doubt Joplin made a dime from it as I see in Wikipedia it was never performed in his lifetime. I didn't remember that but it's no surprise. I'm sure he only made money on the piano rags, which were relatively short and easy to play, like Beethoven's fur Elise. But there is more going on in those rags than conventional ragtime, that's for sure.


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## Larkenfield

What I find remarkable about Joplin’s ragtime is that they can be played in more of a classical rather than ragtime/jazz style. I find that highly unusual, unique, that they can work both ways. Ingenious! In fact, that’s what Joshua Rifkin did in his Joplin LP that was a big seller in the early 1970s. Also, the middle section, the B sections of his popular rags, can be quite complex and involved harmonically. I view that as further evidence of his gifts as a genuinely great composer. 

It’s just too bad that he didn’t get more support for his opera, because I think he believed greatly in his own genius and was quite ambitious as far as what he wanted to accomplish while he had the chance, not only for himself but for African-Americans in general. He wanted to benefit them. His opera is really about the relationship between superstition and education. So he wrote something that would appeal to the uneducated but it was about education, so he could get that idea across.

He wrote a symphony! But it was lost. Someone probably unknowingly tossed out the manuscript with the garbage a few years after he died with no one knowing its importance or significance in the history of American music. I’ve been impressed with everything I’ve heard of Joplin’s… everything. He was far, far more than just the “King of Ragtime.”


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## Dan Ante

Not wanting to start all the BS going again but I think where a certain person is getting confused is that Joplin’s rags may be classic Rag, but that is a wee bit different from Classical Music.


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> Not wanting to start all the BS going again but I think where a certain person is getting confused is that Joplin's rags may be classic Rag, but that is a wee bit different from Classical Music.


Perhaps you can explain the _wee bit_ of difference?


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## fluteman

Larkenfield said:


> What I find remarkable about Joplin's ragtime is that they can be played in more of a classical rather than ragtime/jazz style. I find that highly unusual, unique, that they can work both ways. Ingenious! In fact, that's what Joshua Rifkin did in his Joplin LP that was a big seller in the early 1970s.


Yes, well put, as is the rest of your post. I wasn't going to get into details like that since there doesn't seem to be the interest here, except yours and a few others such as eugeneonagain and gardibolt, and you all seem to know all about Joplin's music already. I think Rifkin's conservative approach was entirely intentional, and designed to stimulate serious interest in the music. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Eubie Blake's flamboyant rendition of Maple Leaf Rag on Saturday Night Live in 1976. And what really caused the Joplin music revival was its use in the score for the Hollywood movie The Sting, played by a Dixieland-style band. So it does work very well with a variety of approaches.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> Perhaps you can explain the _wee bit_ of difference?


Are you serious? How long have you been listening to Classical music, cant you hear it, all your waffling about form, harmony, marches and syncopation and not one shred of evidence to prove your statements.
This may help you. classic rag not classical music.I hope you can understand it.
https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200035813/


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Are you serious? How long have you been listening to Classical music, cant you hear it, all your waffling about form, harmony, marches and syncopation and not one shred of evidence to prove your statements.
> This may help you. classic rag not classical music.I hope you can understand it.
> https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200035813/


Hey, relax, Dan Ante. I don't know about eugeneonagain, but I've listened to a whole lot of classical music my entire life, not to mention performing it in orchestras and chamber music groups. I once spent a lot of time studying the music of Scott Joplin from many angles, and as part of that composed my own piano rag. And guess what?

I don't disagree with the link you posted. Ragtime was originally a uniquely American indigenous form of music, a folk music, if you will. As it became more established, one American composer, namely Scott Joplin (and maybe a few others to a lesser extent), tried to work with the ragtime genre in a more ambitious, serious way, with more than a little success. Of course, another composer who did that, but who was not American, is Igor Stravinsky, most famously in his Ragtime for 11 Instruments (which I performed in college) but in other pieces too. I don't think anyone worries whether Stravinsky's ragtime or jazz-inspired music is "classical". I certainly don't. I also don't worry whether George Gershwin's music rises above mere jazz or swing to the level of classical (many of his pieces are standard repertoire for most symphony orchestras worldwide). I don't worry about Joplin's music, either. Why should I? Or you?

Now, none of Joplin's music is nearly as ambitious as Stravinsky's, which is one of the greatest achievements in all 20th century western music, imho, or even Gershwin's (Rachmaninoff and Schoenberg were great admirers of Gershwin). But it does have ambitions beyond what one ordinarily thinks of with ragtime music, and at least imo, was successful in fulfilling those ambitions to a significant degree. It turned out that ragtime, like jazz, had more creative potential than might have been immediately apparent. That's all.


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> Are you serious? How long have you been listening to Classical music, cant you hear it, all your waffling about form, harmony, marches and syncopation and not one shred of evidence to prove your statements.
> This may help you. classic rag not classical music.I hope you can understand it.
> https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200035813/


I've been listening to it for a long time, from youth, and like Fluteman also playing it in youth orchestras and ensembles. I think you probably already know this, so I'll take it as rhetorical rudeness.

I don't waffle sir. And I don't need any help. You've had plenty of evidence, but truth be told the real 'evidence' is in opening your ears and eyes and switching off that automatic pigeon-holing system in your brain.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> I've been listening to it for a long time, from youth, and like Fluteman also playing it in youth orchestras and ensembles. I think you probably already know this, so I'll take it as rhetorical rudeness.
> 
> I don't waffle sir. And I don't need any help. You've had plenty of evidence, but truth be told the real 'evidence' is in opening your ears and eyes and switching off that automatic pigeon-holing system in your brain.


Then give the reason why ragtime should be classed as classical music, easy enough eh


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> Hey, relax, Dan Ante. I don't know about eugeneonagain, but I've listened to a whole lot of classical music my entire life, not to mention performing it in orchestras and chamber music groups. I once spent a lot of time studying the music of Scott Joplin from many angles, and as part of that composed my own piano rag. And guess what?
> 
> I don't disagree with the link you posted. Ragtime was originally a uniquely American indigenous form of music, a folk music, if you will. As it became more established, one American composer, namely Scott Joplin (and maybe a few others to a lesser extent), tried to work with the ragtime genre in a more ambitious, serious way, with more than a little success. Of course, another composer who did that, but who was not American, is Igor Stravinsky, most famously in his Ragtime for 11 Instruments (which I performed in college) but in other pieces too. I don't think anyone worries whether Stravinsky's ragtime or jazz-inspired music is "classical". I certainly don't. I also don't worry whether George Gershwin's music rises above mere jazz or swing to the level of classical (many of his pieces are standard repertoire for most symphony orchestras worldwide). I don't worry about Joplin's music, either. Why should I? Or you?
> I am not going to discuss Stravinsky or Gershwin that will only take us off topic.
> 
> Now, none of Joplin's music is nearly as ambitious as Stravinsky's, which is one of the greatest achievements in all 20th century western music, imho, or even Gershwin's (Rachmaninoff and Schoenberg were great admirers of Gershwin). But it does have ambitions beyond what one ordinarily thinks of with ragtime music, and at least imo, was successful in fulfilling those ambitions to a significant degree. It turned out that ragtime, like jazz, had more creative potential than might have been immediately apparent. That's all.


First I am not at least worried about Joplins music it is not the type of thing that interests me, secondly I am relaxed, now the question is_ Should ragtime be considered a form of classical?_ I say no eugeneonagain says yes I have repeatedly asked why yet he has not provided an answer, to claim that rag time is anything other than a jazzy/swingy type of music with roots in African music is ridiculous. Western Classical music evolved out of Europe and has no connection with Africa at all. If you consider ragtime is classical music then I ask you the same questions that I have been asking eugeneonagain .


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> Then give the reason why ragtime should be classed as classical music, easy enough eh


Give a _valid_ reason (other than 'but it just ain't!) why its most developed form shouldn't be classed as such. Considering your expertise in this matter _that_ should be easy enough eh?


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> I say no eugeneonagain says yes I have repeatedly asked why yet he has not provided an answer, to claim that rag time is anything other than a jazzy/swingy type of music with roots in African music is ridiculous. Western Classical music evolved out of Europe and has no connection with Africa at all. If you consider ragtime is classical music then I ask you the same questions that I have been asking eugeneonagain .


What a complete misrepresentation. Anyone can go back in this thread and read the suggestions, examples and reasons, offered by multiple contributors, for considering why the developed form of ragtime could be considered a form of classical music.

Here in this very quote above you are now ignoring it with the observation that "Classical music evolved out of Europe and has no connection with Africa at all", even when it was explained that American musicians - including those from non-European backgrounds - were familiar with or involved with or even trained in European classical music, which was spread in the U.S. early on as a form of cultural transplantation.

But I'm repeating myself when you ought to have understood it the first time, but you are not paying attention, instead repeating obvious mistakes (as in the citation above). Do not now pose as someone who has somehow asked pertinent and crucial questions that have failed to be answered. That has not happened.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> What a complete misrepresentation. Anyone can go back in this thread and read the suggestions, examples and reasons, offered by multiple contributors, for considering why the developed form of ragtime could be considered a form of classical music.
> 
> Here in this very quote above you are now ignoring it with the observation that "Classical music evolved out of Europe and has no connection with Africa at all", even when it was explained that American musicians - including those from non-European backgrounds - were familiar with or involved with or even trained in European classical music, which was spread in the U.S. early on as a form of cultural transplantation.
> 
> But I'm repeating myself when you ought to have understood it the first time, but you are not paying attention, instead repeating obvious mistakes (as in the citation above). Do not now pose as someone who has somehow asked pertinent and crucial questions that have failed to be answered. That has not happened.


You are very sarcastic, and yes easy enough to answer, btw I have not told you of my expertise, and what orchestras or ensembles have you played with and what is your instrument?
Gosh you are determined not to commit yourself, 
There is nothing unique in a ragtime composition compared to other forms of music jazz, rock, folk, dance etc that makes it classical, not Harmony, form or syncopation which are the ones you mentioned now if I am wrong I await your explanation 
Re the origins of classical music it had nothing at all to do with Africa it was purely European from early Gregorian chant up to Beethoven Mahler etc


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## eugeneonagain

Dan Ante said:


> You are very sarcastic, and yes easy enough to answer, btw I have not told you of my expertise, *and* what orchestras or ensembles have you played with and what is your instrument?


That's right, we can all do sarcasm. I'm a bit confused as to why those two sentences are linked with an 'and', but anyway... Were you asking what my instrument is? Originally the cornet and then flugel (also trumpet). This is the instrument I played in ensembles and youth orchestras (schools and youth version of a symphony orchestra). I also play the flute and piano. Why is this relevant though? Even if I played the entire woodwind section or no instruments at all the question remains the same.



Dan Ante said:


> Gosh you are determined not to commit yourself,
> There is nothing unique in a ragtime composition compared to other forms of music jazz, rock, folk, dance etc that makes it classical, not Harmony, form or syncopation which are the ones you mentioned now if I am wrong I await your explanation
> *Re the origins of classical music it had nothing at all to do with Africa it was purely European from early Gregorian chant up to Beethoven Mahler etc*


Why do you keep repeating this? No-one here, and certainly not me, has claimed that the origins of 'classical music has anything to do with Africa'. The question is about its influence in America and on American music and musicians.

When ragtime originated, jazz didn't exist, rock didn't exist either. Folk existed obviously. Even so-called popular music (pre rock, jazz, pop etc) had more in common with what has become 'classical' music. Dance music in particular has had a huge influence on the development of 'art-music' through composers adopting their rhythms and forms and stylizing them. Even 'popular song' of the late 19th century and early 20th uses a simplified (sometimes not so simplified) version of the same music forms employed in 'classical'/ art-music writing.

African music does not use Western-style harmony, so its blending originally with choral-style hymns from Western music in America led to the 'Negro-spiritual' style. Ragtime and its predecessors blend not just 'African' rhythms, but also blends of all kinds of influences in American musical culture with western harmony. Later on, it clearly reached a little higher than just cakewalks; in the same way a traditional folk jig and a jig in a suite by Handel or Bach show development. Ragtime really fizzled out and has remained much the same as it was at its popular peak, but the same can be said of truly 'classical' music so that's not really a concern.

I contend that ragtime is a meeting of musical culture, of classical music from Europe filtered into American musical culture and influences from popular culture. It may be on the fringes, but so what.


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## JeffD

How many of the concert going public think of ragtime when someone says classical music? If the average musically literate person turned on your local public radio classical music station and heard the stage at the New Orleans Ragtime Festival, would that person be surprised? If you were to ask a conservatory student his favorite classical composer, would you expect it to be Scott Joplin.


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## KenOC

Rags are definitely classical music. Why? Because I put my rag recordings on that shelf, along with Pink Floyd. So sue me. :lol:


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## eugeneonagain

Crikey, who would have expected such robust and wide-ranging rebuttals? I'm kneecapped.


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## KenOC

JeffD said:


> If the average musically literate person turned on your local public radio classical music station and heard the stage at the New Orleans Ragtime Festival, would that person be surprised?



Oddly, my local station (KUSC) plays Bolcom's Graceful Ghost Rag quite often. A nice opening page, but less inspired middle sections before the reprise. Joplin is still the master.

Rag, like the classical waltz, requires consistently inspired ideas, one after the other. Many are called but few are chosen, as they say.​


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## DaveM

eugeneonagain said:


> That's right, we can all do sarcasm. I'm a bit confused as to why those two sentences are linked with an 'and', but anyway... Were you asking what my instrument is? Originally the cornet and then flugel (also trumpet). This is the instrument I played in ensembles and youth orchestras (schools and youth version of a symphony orchestra). I also play the flute and piano. Why is this relevant though? Even if I played the entire woodwind section or no instruments at all the question remains the same.
> 
> Why do you keep repeating this? No-one here, and certainly not me, has claimed that the origins of 'classical music has anything to do with Africa'. The question is about its influence in America and on American music and musicians.
> 
> When ragtime originated, jazz didn't exist, rock didn't exist either. Folk existed obviously. Even so-called popular music (pre rock, jazz, pop etc) had more in common with what has become 'classical' music. Dance music in particular has had a huge influence on the development of 'art-music' through composers adopting their rhythms and forms and stylizing them. Even 'popular song' of the late 19th century and early 20th uses a simplified (sometimes not so simplified) version of the same music forms employed in 'classical'/ art-music writing.
> 
> African music does not use Western-style harmony, so its blending originally with choral-style hymns from Western music in America led to the 'Negro-spiritual' style. Ragtime and its predecessors blend not just 'African' rhythms, but also blends of all kinds of influences in American musical culture with western harmony. Later on, it clearly reached a little higher than just cakewalks; in the same way a traditional folk jig and a jig in a suite by Handel or Bach show development. Ragtime really fizzled out and has remained much the same as it was at its popular peak, but the same can be said of truly 'classical' music so that's not really a concern.
> 
> I contend that ragtime is a meeting of musical culture, of classical music from Europe filtered into American musical culture and influences from popular culture. It may be on the fringes, but so what.





eugeneonagain said:


> I think perhaps I'm a bit more elastic to some of the other opinions here on both sides, that although ragtime demonstrates elements of classical forms, in some ways it is its own thing. In this respect I lack your rigid certainty.


Okay, so, in the end, you can't really decide whether ragtime is classical music or not. It has elements of classical, but _'in some ways it is its own thing'_.

But on top of that, the message is that being 'elastic' on the subject is a virtue and being decisive is a sin. Hmm. I'm dismayed that all the 'evidence' put forth in favor of ragtime being classical has resulted in a 'maybe, maybe not'.

I played violin. I play the piano. I played in a youth orchestra. I've even composed a bit. Big whoop! More important is my experience with listening to classical music. I can listen to a work I'm not familiar with and make a pretty good guess as to the composer. I hear various types of jazz and know it isn't classical. I hear rock and know it's not classical. I hear honky-tonk and know it's not classical. I hear ragtime and know it's not classical.

Call me crazy, I'm decisive on the subject.


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## Dan Ante

eugeneonagain said:


> That's right, we can all do sarcasm. I'm a bit confused as to why those two sentences are linked with an 'and', but anyway... Were you asking what my instrument is? Originally the cornet and then flugel (also trumpet). This is the instrument I played in ensembles and youth orchestras (schools and youth version of a symphony orchestra). I also play the flute and piano. Why is this relevant though? Even if I played the entire woodwind section or no instruments at all the question remains the same.
> 
> Why do you keep repeating this? No-one here, and certainly not me, has claimed that the origins of 'classical music has anything to do with Africa'. The question is about its influence in America and on American music and musicians.
> 
> When ragtime originated, jazz didn't exist, rock didn't exist either. Folk existed obviously. Even so-called popular music (pre rock, jazz, pop etc) had more in common with what has become 'classical' music. Dance music in particular has had a huge influence on the development of 'art-music' through composers adopting their rhythms and forms and stylizing them. Even 'popular song' of the late 19th century and early 20th uses a simplified (sometimes not so simplified) version of the same music forms employed in 'classical'/ art-music writing.
> 
> African music does not use Western-style harmony, so its blending originally with choral-style hymns from Western music in America led to the 'Negro-spiritual' style. Ragtime and its predecessors blend not just 'African' rhythms, but also blends of all kinds of influences in American musical culture with western harmony. Later on, it clearly reached a little higher than just cakewalks; in the same way a traditional folk jig and a jig in a suite by Handel or Bach show development. Ragtime really fizzled out and has remained much the same as it was at its popular peak, but the same can be said of truly 'classical' music so that's not really a concern.
> 
> I contend that ragtime is a meeting of musical culture, of classical music from Europe filtered into American musical culture and influences from popular culture. It may be on the fringes, but so what.


Nothing new OK fair enough.
Sounds like your playing was in brass or marching bands, I am all for Brass Bands a lot of people learned their music basics in Brass Bands.
You have said that ragtime's harmony is classical  however we are not likely to agree on calling Rag Classical music but I think calling it American Classical may please you providing it does not upset others.


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## Larkenfield

Here are some tremendous Joplin rags played in the traditional ragtime way, and not the more classical Joshua Rifkin style, that might be of interest to those who haven't heard them. I could listen to them all day and would describe them as _Afro-American in spirit but written with the harmonic sophistication of classical music_. They're a hybrid of factors unique to him and composed at a high level of excellence.

I believe Joplin will continue to defy any kind of a single description or category. Some of the rags are like two in one in that he keeps adding new themes and material that never return to the original theme-that they are not simple AABA forms, plus some have unusual codas and unexpected harmonic changes, and he never seems to lose his way or get lost. (Like a Mozart or Gershwin in his freshness and clarity!) I find them fresh and non-fatiguing to hear (unlike Bolcom), and the middle development of these rags are as strong as his initial themes. Quite remarkable, IMO.

The first two rags are well known, but the rest are lesser known but sophisticated in their design and inventive harmonic development with a strong element of surprise. Some really swing in the traditional ragtime style, unlike what is found in the more classical approach of performing them, but that they can be uniquely done in at least two styles.

The ragtime style is more suitable as popular or dance music; the formal style more classically highlights the sophistication of their design, construction and harmonic originality; that rather than dancing to them, one can focus on the depth of their invention like listen to any other composer of genius.

What a shame that so much of his work has been lost, such as his 1st Symphony, which I imagine would have showcased just how harmonically and thematically sophisticated he could be, and not just as a composer of popular ragtime dance music.


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## KenOC

Lark, do you know the pianist in the long YT clip you posted?


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## Dan Ante

Sounds just like Rubinstein you can see the connection to his Chopin.


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Then give the reason why ragtime should be classed as classical music, easy enough eh


If you know little or nothing about a form of music, the way to learn more is by listening to it, or if you have enough musical training, studying scores and learning to play it yourself. You could even read up its history and cultural context. Asking questions in an internet discussion group can get you some useful suggestions on where to begin, but that's about it. There's no point in getting angry or resentful about the inability of posters here to educate you more fully.

As I mentioned, I probably know less than I should about the music of New Zealand. But I won't claim New Zealand has produced no worthwhile classical music just because you aren't able to convincingly prove with a few posts on this internet forum that it has. The fact that I don't know of any significant classical music from New Zealand doesn't mean there isn't any. My ignorance doesn't prove anything, and neither does yours.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> If you know little or nothing about a form of music, the way to learn more is by listening to it, or if you have enough musical training, studying scores and learning to play it yourself. You could even read up its history and cultural context. Asking questions in an internet discussion group can get you some useful suggestions on where to begin, but that's about it. There's no point in getting angry or resentful about the inability of posters here to educate you more fully.
> 
> As I mentioned, I probably know less than I should about the music of New Zealand. But I won't claim New Zealand has produced no worthwhile classical music just because you aren't able to convincingly prove with a few posts on this internet forum that it has. The fact that I don't know of any significant classical music from New Zealand doesn't mean there isn't any. My ignorance doesn't prove anything, and neither does yours.


Whoa there fluteman no one is asking to be educated and after so many times of asking the basic question still remains unanswered *(what is it in the construction of a rag that is not present in other forms of non classical music that makes it classical)* if you or any other lover of ragtime cannot answer that then the fault lies with you not me.
Can I suggest that it would have been more polite to use the term 'lack of knowledge' rather than the word 'ignorance' which is much too strong.
I admit I have no knowledge of ragtime and am not the least bit interested in it however I have found three articles on the www and none mentioned that ragtime was classical music, now couple that with the fact that more knowledgeable people than me or even you have classed it as ragtime should be enough to satisfy you that it has been given the correct classification.
Now regarding your unfamiliarity with NZ composers despite my giving you a name or two is understandable so here are a few links for you to peruse at you leisure.





 John Ritchie





 Edwin Carr





 Douglas Lilburn





 John Psathas





 Gareth Farr


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## Guest

JeffD said:


> How many of the concert going public think of ragtime when someone says classical music? If the average musically literate person turned on your local public radio classical music station and heard the stage at the New Orleans Ragtime Festival, would that person be surprised? If you were to ask a conservatory student his favorite classical composer, would you expect it to be Scott Joplin.


Probably not. However, Scott Joplin _has_ been featured as Composer of the Week on the BBC classical music radio station Radio 3.

Maybe there's an overlap?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0080fv2


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## Bulldog

Dan Ante said:


> I admit I have no knowledge of ragtime and am not the least bit interested in it...


Yet, you keep covering the same ground over and over concerning a subject you don't care about. Why not concentrate on subjects that you are interested in?


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Whoa there fluteman no one is asking to be educated and after so many times of asking the basic question still remains unanswered *(what is it in the construction of a rag that is not present in other forms of non classical music that makes it classical)* if you or any other lover of ragtime cannot answer that then the fault lies with you not me.
> Can I suggest that it would have been more polite to use the term 'lack of knowledge' rather than the word 'ignorance' which is much too strong.
> I admit I have no knowledge of ragtime and am not the least bit interested in it however I have found three articles on the www and none mentioned that ragtime was classical music, now couple that with the fact that more knowledgeable people than me or even you have classed it as ragtime should be enough to satisfy you that it has been given the correct classification.
> Now regarding your unfamiliarity with NZ composers despite my giving you a name or two is understandable so here are a few links for you to peruse at you leisure.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> John Ritchie
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Edwin Carr
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Douglas Lilburn
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> John Psathas
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Gareth Farr


Sorry, I had no intention of insulting you or being impolite, unlike many flame throwers on the 'net. Delete "ignorance" and substitute "lack of knowledge", as per your suggestion. And thank you very much for the New Zealand composer links. But I do stand by my post otherwise. There are more subtleties and complexities in these things than can be fully explored in an internet thread. If you go into the subject in more depth, you may still disagree with some of the statements by me and others here, but you will see the basis for them, I promise. Cheers.

Edit: If you are interested in Treemonisha, there is a DG recording with Gunther Schuller, the Houston Grand Opera Orchestra, and I think pretty much the same cast as in the original performances. But I think the youtube video linked by Larkenfield (that I was not previously aware of) is actually a better bet despite the middling sound quality . It also seems to feature all or most of the same cast.

And I liked all of those kiwi composers. My initial impression after listening for a few minutes: Ritchie and Lilburn older and in the tradition of Holst and Sibelius, respectively, Carr with witty, lyrical wind music in the spirit of Milhaud, Poulenc and Francaix, and Psathas and Farr more recent and of what I think of as the postmodern, atmospheric minimalist school. But those categories are arbitrary and personal to me. When I listen more, I may change my mind about one or all of them. No need to get upset. ;-)


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## JeffD

If your 10 year old daughter petulantly announced she_ hated_ classical music, and you played a recording of East Tennessee Rag, Beaumont Rag, and the Dallas Rag, and found her smiling and tapping her toe, would you say "see, not all classical music is boring."??

Would these ragtime tunes be the first thing you would pull to show your daughter that not all classical music is boring? The second thing you pulled?


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## Dan Ante

Bulldog said:


> Yet, you keep covering the same ground over and over concerning a subject you don't care about. Why not concentrate on subjects that you are interested in?


I am interested in the subject of the thread and not a follower of rag.


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## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> Sorry, I had no intention of insulting you or being impolite, unlike many flame throwers on the 'net. Delete "ignorance" and substitute "lack of knowledge", as per your suggestion. And thank you very much for the New Zealand composer links. But I do stand by my post otherwise.


Thats OK and I stand by my post :tiphat:


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## Larkenfield

Dan Ante said:


> I am interested in the subject of the thread and not a follower of rag.


"I admit I have no knowledge of ragtime and am not the least bit interested in it."

One can lead a listener to the classical in ragtime and_ Treemonisha_ but one can't make him swing.


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## Larkenfield

KenOC said:


> Lark, do you know the pianist in the long YT clip you posted?


Hi Ken, sorry to say I don't know, but I like the performances very much!


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## Larkenfield

KenOC said:


> Lark, do you know the pianist in the long YT clip you posted?


Okay. The following took hours to put together... This is it and, IMO, the only collection I've heard out of many that consistently swings and is not played too fast. Scroll down for the list of rags. But it's not found on Amazon and the link to iTunes does not appear correct, so I have no idea where the CDs can be found. (I ended up downloading it off YT for my personal library.) The performer Ania Safa is a classically trained pianist:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HE7T6NE/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp

Incidentally, Itzhak Perlman & Andre Previn, flautist Jean Rampal, pianists Katia & Marielle Labèque, and even E. Power Biggs have all recorded albums of Scott Joplin, perhaps because they consider it as classic American music or they simply love the music and the happy spirit behind it. But it should be obvious to everyone that a number of classical musicians have taken a serious interest in it or I doubt if they would have bothered.

Of course they musta been out of their minds! 

Those who remember the late tv comedian & innovator Ernie Kovacs, the theme song he used for years until his untimely death was a take-off on Joplin's _Maple Leaf Rag_ with quotes from it. -Lark






00:00 - Maple Leaf Rag
03:05 - The Entertainer
06:39 - Magnetic Rag
11:40 - Elite Syncopations
15:12 - Country Club
18:52 - Paragon Rag
22:42 - Eugenia
26:30 - Cleopha
29:20 - Scott Joplin New Rag
33:02 - Easy Winners
36:39 - Lily Queen
39:50 - The Chrysantheum
43:43 - Heliotrope Bouquet
47:14 - Reflection Rag
51:14 - Cascades
54:36 - The Streneous Life
58:01 - Felicity Rag
1:00:48 - Swipesy
1:04:21 - Peacherine Rag
1:07:41 - Something Doing
1:10:50 - Search Light
1:15:24 - Rose Leaf Rag
1:19:03 - Fig Leaf Rag
1:22:35 - Original Rags
1:26:29 - Sunflower Slow Drag
1:29:50 - Pine Apple Rag
1:33:19 - Gladiolous Rag
1:37:48 - The Ragtime Dance
1:41:36 - Sugar Cane
1:44:58 - Palm Leaf Rag
1:48:10 - Combination March
1:51:39 - A Breeze from Alabama


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## fluteman

Larkenfield said:


> Okay. The following took hours to put together...


Wow, what a post. Thanks. That post, (and to be fair, Dan Ante's links to music by New Zealand composers), are perfect examples of why I pursue these threads. As a flutist, you might have guessed that I've long been familiar with Jean-Pierre Rampal's Joplin album. Rampal also did a Gershwin album, and three albums of traditional Japanese melodies.

Larkenfield, you either already know or made an intelligent guess about Rampal. He had an uncanny gift for digging through mountains of music, whether long-forgotten classical, by little-known contemporary composers, popular, or written for other instruments, and mining the diamonds. If it wasn't written for the flute originally, he worked with talented and skilled arrangers, and the end result? Well, imho, sometimes magnificent, sometimes less so, but you always understood and respected the merits of the material. It is telling that Rampal included Joplin in his repertoire.


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## gardibolt

Dan Ante said:


> Whoa there fluteman no one is asking to be educated and after so many times of asking the basic question still remains unanswered *(what is it in the construction of a rag that is not present in other forms of non classical music that makes it classical)* if you or any other lover of ragtime cannot answer that then the fault lies with you not me.
> Can I suggest that it would have been more polite to use the term 'lack of knowledge' rather than the word 'ignorance' which is much too strong.


You have never responded to my equivalent challenge, which is to distinguish a ragtime piece from the form of a march, which is undoubtedly classical.



> I admit I have no knowledge of ragtime and am not the least bit interested in it r


Here's the crux of your argument. You don't like ragtime, therefore it's not classical music. I'm done arguing with you.


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## millionrainbows

Ragtime is not European classical; it's American. But the technical demands are there, specialized for that form: independence of the hands, stride bass, etc. It's black (African American) in nature, related to jazz…its rhythm is the important aspect.

For that matter, European classical is is a specialized form of european music with a long uninterrupted legacy, because it was before the advent of recording. Ragtime is often said to be the American version of Chopin's mazurkas, etc, other European folk-influenced music which is "classical."

Ragtime has its limitations, but it also escapes the confines of normal classical. It is African american, so its rhythmic aspects cannot always be easily notated, as well as most blues and jazz also. This is because the beat is divided into three, yet has a 1-2-3-4 pulse, (1-4-7-10) so the subdivisions must be "felt" or notated in 6/8 or 12/8, which is counterintuitive if you're counting the bass in 1-2-3-4.

The Western notation system goes by 2's: 16th, 8th, 4th, half. Always doubles by 2, all a multiple of two. We are a "marching" militaristic culture, like John Philip Sousa. Everything is 1-2-3-4, march, march, march, by 2's. This reflects our imperialistic culture: We march into your primitive country and enslave you.


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## EdwardBast

Dan Ante said:


> *(what is it in the construction of a rag that is not present in other forms of non classical music that makes it classical)*


I don't argue that ragtime is a form of classical music. But a number of posts in this thread have cited features that make a reasonable case for it. Have you not noticed these or are you pretending they don't exist?:
-its harmonic language, including its use of circle of fifths progressions and secondary dominants. 
-that its structures are like those one finds in classical dance based movements like waltzes.
-the very fact that it has a definitive notated text whose faithful reproduction constitutes a valid performance distinguishes it from most forms of non-classical music.


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## DaveM

There have been several posters state in so many words that they don't think that ragtime is classical. Some have given little or no explanation. Why is one particular poster getting all the backlash even by a couple of posters who according to them aren't arguing that ragtime is a form of classical music?


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## Larkenfield

millionrainbows said:


> Ragtime is not European classical; it's American. But the technical demands are there, specialized for that form: independence of the hands, stride bass, etc. It's black (African American) in nature, related to jazz…its rhythm is the important aspect.
> 
> For that matter, European classical is is a specialized form of european music with a long uninterrupted legacy, because it was before the advent of recording. Ragtime is often said to be the American version of Chopin's mazurkas, etc, other European folk-influenced music which is "classical."
> 
> Ragtime has its limitations, but it also escapes the confines of normal classical. It is African american, so its rhythmic aspects cannot always be easily notated, as well as most blues and jazz also. This is because the beat is divided into three, yet has a 1-2-3-4 pulse, (1-4-7-10) so the subdivisions must be "felt" or notated in 6/8 or 12/8, which is counterintuitive if you're counting the bass in 1-2-3-4.
> 
> The Western notation system goes by 2's: 16th, 8th, 4th, half. Always doubles by 2, all a multiple of two. We are a "marching" militaristic culture, like John Philip Sousa. Everything is 1-2-3-4, march, march, march, by 2's. This reflects our imperialistic culture: We march into your primitive country and enslave you.


Bravo! Well said.

For the astute listener, so much is evident simply by hearing good performances of the music, which unfortunately I've found difficult to come by. There are too many performances on terrible pianos, bad piano roll productions, misguided tempos, and a number of other interferences to really appreciate what Jopin put into this music that elevates it above the music of his day and attractes the interest of the serious classical musicians of today.


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## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> Ragtime has its limitations, but it also escapes the confines of normal classical. It is African american, so its rhythmic aspects cannot always be easily notated, as well as most blues and jazz also. This is because the beat is divided into three, yet has a 1-2-3-4 pulse, (1-4-7-10) so the subdivisions must be "felt" or notated in 6/8 or 12/8, which is counterintuitive if you're counting the bass in 1-2-3-4.


That's right, millionrainbows. But that syncopated rhythmic device had long already been used by European classical composers to create a bouncy, energetic 3-against-4 feel. I've already mentioned the oboe solo in the third movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Or a similar syncopated effect used by Chopin in his Mazurka Op. 7 no. 1, which of course is in three and not in four, but there is the same syncopated dance effect as in the Pastoral Symphony. Edit: Actually, some think Chopin's Mazurkas are more in a four than a three-beat rhythm. The syncopation naturally creates the rhythmic tension you are talking about:

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/06/29/arts/putting-the-dance-back-into-the-mazurka.html

It may be an African idea to make syncopated rhythms such a central feature, but Scott Joplin is clearly using European classical techniques to incorporate that idea.


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## Dan Ante

gardibolt said:


> You have never responded to my equivalent challenge, which is to distinguish a ragtime piece from the form of a march, which is undoubtedly classical.
> 
> Here's the crux of your argument. You don't like ragtime, therefore it's not classical music. I'm done arguing with you.


OMG I've been dumped, I am devastated


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## tortkis

millionrainbows said:


> Ragtime has its limitations, but it also escapes the confines of normal classical. It is African american, so its rhythmic aspects cannot always be easily notated, as well as most blues and jazz also. This is because the beat is divided into three, yet has a 1-2-3-4 pulse, (1-4-7-10) so the subdivisions must be "felt" or notated in 6/8 or 12/8, which is counterintuitive if you're counting the bass in 1-2-3-4.


I think you are talking about swing rhythm, but is it true about ragtime? The syncopation is characteristic of rags but it is not swing rhythm. And Joplin wanted his music played accurately as written without any alteration of rhythm.


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## Dan Ante

I would like to see an example of notation of 6/8 12/8 or even3/8 with the bass playing 4/4 if that is what is meant, I am not looking for an argument just genuinely interested, and a rag if possible or any thing.


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> I would like to see an example of notation of 6/8 12/8 or even3/8 with the bass playing 4/4 if that is what is meant, I am not looking for an argument just genuinely interested, and a rag if possible or any thing.


Well, that's not what Joplin typically does. Take a look at the score of Pineapple Rag (easily to google), go past the introduction to the first theme. It is in 2/4 time in the bass and treble, but the melody in the treble begins with the semiquaver-quaver-semiquaver pattern I mentioned earlier, with the bass keeping a steady 4 quaver oom-pah beat. In measure 5, the melody begins with that same semiquaver-quaver-semiquaver pattern, but then reverses it in the second half of the measure with a quaver-semiquaver-quaver pattern, with the same 4 steady oom-pah quaver beats in the bass line. So obviously, the treble line continues for 2 1/8 beats and bleeds into the next measure with one extra semiquaver. That is the kind of syncopation a jazz or swing player would improvise, but it is carefully written into the score here.

The improvising jazz or swing player might be disappointed with that, but Joplin keeps careful control over his scores. and inserts rhythmic and harmonic ideas of his own to add sophistication and interest. So it's a very different thing from swing or jazz.


----------



## Dan Ante

fluteman said:


> Well, that's not what Joplin typically does. Take a look at the score of Pineapple Rag (easily to google), go past the introduction to the first theme. It is in 2/4 time in the bass and treble, but the melody in the treble begins with the semiquaver-quaver-semiquaver pattern I mentioned earlier, with the bass keeping a steady 4 quaver oom-pah beat. In measure 5, the melody begins with that same semiquaver-quaver-semiquaver pattern, but then reverses it in the second half of the measure with a quaver-semiquaver-quaver pattern, with the same 4 steady oom-pah quaver beats in the bass line. So obviously, the treble line continues for 2 1/8 beats and bleeds into the next measure with one extra semiquaver. That is the kind of syncopation a jazz or swing player would improvise, but it is carefully written into the score here.
> 
> The improvising jazz or swing player might be disappointed with that, but Joplin keeps careful control over his scores. and inserts rhythmic and harmonic ideas of his own to add sophistication and interest. So it's a very different thing from swing or jazz.


Yes I understand that, I thought million was saying that the top line was in triple time and the base line in quadruple which you do not see all that often  so I must have misunderstood him, I do remember once in a jazz club the piano playing 4/4 and the base and drums playing ¾ just for the middle 8 all improvised of course.


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## fluteman

Dan Ante said:


> Yes I understand that, I thought million was saying that the top line was in triple time and the base line in quadruple which you do not see all that often  so I must have misunderstood him, I do remember once in a jazz club the piano playing 4/4 and the base and drums playing ¾ just for the middle 8 all improvised of course.


Actually, I do see that pretty often, and Joplin may do it but it's not part of his basic blueprint for the piano rags.


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## millionrainbows

That's why Joplin has classical appeal; he "classicized" and Westernized the ragtime form into a more European 'classical' form with more regular 4/4 feel, and strict notation. Compared with Fats Waller, Joplin is, indeed, almost "classical" because he was trained in the European tradition, and could adapt ragtime into that system, the same way Astor Piazolla adapted tango.

I'm thinking that ragtime was an aurally conceived form, existing only as performance and on recordings, and by notating it, Joplin gave it a more classical feel. Probably a lot of the early seminal ragtime, like most blues and popular/folk musics, was not originally notated except after the fact, or existed only in recorded (ear) form. To get it published and sold for profit, it had to be notated.


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## fluteman

millionrainbows said:


> That's why Joplin has classical appeal; he "classicized" and Westernized the ragtime form into a more European 'classical' form with more regular 4/4 feel, and strict notation. Compared with Fats Waller, Joplin is, indeed, almost "classical" because he was trained in the European tradition, and could adapt ragtime into that system, the same way Astor Piazolla adapted tango.
> 
> I'm thinking that ragtime was an aurally conceived form, existing only as performance and on recordings, and by notating it, Joplin gave it a more classical feel. Probably a lot of the early seminal ragtime, like most blues and popular/folk musics, was not originally notated except after the fact, or existed only in recorded (ear) form. To get it published and sold for profit, it had to be notated.


And in that regard, it's very interesting to compare Joplin (1868-1917) with his much longer-lived contemporary and fellow ragtime pianist Eubie Blake (1883-1983). Blake uses a much freer, more improvised style and is perhaps closer to the original ragtime idea than the slightly older Joplin. However, Blake can't achieve many of the sophisticated effects Joplin achieves, so there is a trade-off.


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## Pat Fairlea

fluteman said:


> And in that regard, it's very interesting to compare Joplin (1868-1917) with his much longer-lived contemporary and fellow ragtime pianist Eubie Blake (1883-1983). Blake uses a much freer, more improvised style and is perhaps closer to the original ragtime idea than the slightly older Joplin. However, Blake can't achieve many of the sophisticated effects Joplin achieves, so there is a trade-off.


I can't let this pass without my favourite Eubie Blake quote (as he approached his 100th birthday)
"If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself".
He then put the large cigar back into his mouth.

Here's Blake in 1921 giving it his remarkable all.


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## millionrainbows

Ragtime could be considered 'classical' insofar as it was composed music. It was Western music played 'black' in terms of rhythm. Lots of ragtime survived in the form of piano rolls, which is a pretty precise way of 'notating' piano music.
Jazz, on the other hand, was improvised for the most part.


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