Palm Leaf Rag (1903) - Scott Joplin (With Score / Sheet Music)

Details

Description

Published in Chicago, Illinois, by Victor Kremer a few months after Weeping Willow was issued, Palm Leaf Rag creates a bookend of sorts to its predecessor. It also had become the first rag Joplin had ever sold sold to a Chicago publisher, providing a new distribution base as well as a fresh audience for Joplin's pieces, the most famous of which was listed on the cover, demonstrating that he had already obtained a solid reputation as America's biggest Ragtime composer during the time.

While it is as graceful and smooth as Weeping Willow, Palm Leaf Rag contains more sophisticated syncopation as well as some asymmetry, although not to the same degree as Maple Leaf Rag. Note that the left hand pattern is set up in the last measure of the thematically separate introduction, an unusual touch for his earlier 1903 compositions. The B strain is broken up with counter-melodic patterns in the left hand with the trio echoes some works yet to come, and contains a few anticipatory syncopations over bar lines. It is followed by transitional introduction back into the first strain, a device rarely used in ragtime, and infrequently seen by Joplin as well. Yet in the end, Palm Leaf Rag proves itself to be quite a proper work to conclude his composition period of 1903 as Joplin's music begins to take off into a more complex & sentimental tone throughout 1904.
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"Palm Leaf Rag" - Classic Piano Rag - Pattern: Intro A A B B Trio Trio Intro1 A A
Music by Scott Joplin, Published by Victor Kremer Publishers in 1903
Cover Artist: Unknown

Music description provided & written by Bill Edwards, learn more about it here:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220308214107/http://ragpiano.com/pbmusic_joplin1.shtml

Music performed by Guido Nielsen with his album "Scott Joplin: The Complete Works (Rags, Marches, Waltzes & Songs)"

℗ 2000 Basta Audio-Visuals
Producer: Piet Schreuders
Music Publisher: Basta Music
Performer: Guido Nielsen