Whiting the Wrongs of History
The Resurrection of Scott Joplin
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11679182 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Peter J Rabinowitz (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1991 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 157-157 |
| Publication date | 1991-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Black Music Research Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0276-3605 • E-ISSN: 1946-1615 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/779264 |
| OpenAlex | W2327669470 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 8 |
Despite continuing ragtime revivals among enthusiasts, Scott Joplin's music maintained only a marginal audience during the half-century following the United States' entry into the First World War. His death went unmentioned by The New York Times (Blesh and Janis 1971, unnumbered page); he rated no entry in the third, fourth, or fifth editions of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians; not even Sigmund Spaeth's mammoth History of Popular Music in America (1948) mentioned his name.' Indeed, as late as 1961, A. R. Danberg Charters was lamenting the difficulty of finding copies of classic ragtime scores (Charters 1961, 175). It was only with the ragtime revival of the seventies-sparked by the release of Joshua Rifkin's first Joplin album on the Nonesuch label and fueled by the use of Joplin's music in the movie The Sting-that he graduated from cult figure to national hero. Yet his renewed popularity has only rekindled long-standing debates about the nature of ragtime. Is ragtime essentially dance music (e.g., Schafer and Riedel [1973] 1977, 6; Brooks 1984, 66; Haskins 1978, 74-75), or are its rhythms too elaborate to lend themselves to dancing (Jasen and Tichenor 1978, 4)? Is ragtime a general musical technique that is found in anything that is syncopated, including Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Flowers (Blake 1975, 7)-a technique that can be applied to pre-existing music (e.g., Spaeth 1948, 285)-or is it a limited genre with a very narrow historical, national, and racial specificity (ones 1963, 110-111)? Is the best of ragtime (specifically Joplin) pop music (e.g., Kovner 1976) or an important kind
Art · Art history · Biology · Fish · Fishery · Whiting · Diverse Musicological Studies · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |