Joplin: Fig Leaf Rag (Kevin MacLeod, piano)

Scott Joplin's marriage to Belle Hayden, sister-in-law of Scott Hayden, his young protégé and sometime collaborator (e.g., Sunflower Slow Drag), broke up early in 1906, after the death of their infant daughter, and Joplin left St. Louis for Chicago, where he salvaged melody from the dying Louis Chauvin's genius -- themes that furnished the two opening strains of Heliotrope Bouquet, published in 1907 by John Stark. At some time during those years Joplin made several pianola rolls -- including the Maple Leaf Rag, Original Rags, Weeping Willow, and Gladiolus Rag -- which furnish, however imperfectly, and with a handful of later rolls, the only vestiges of his own distinctive, crooningly legato playing. His restless wandering included stays with Arthur Marshall in Chicago; Tom Turpin in St. Louis; a visit to his birthplace, Texarkana, TX; and several unrewarding stints on the vaudeville circuit before a move to New York in 1907, where Stark had already relocated his firm. In addition to the blithesome Heliotrope Bouquet, that year saw the publication of Joplin's Nonpareil, Searchlight, Gladiolus, and Rose Leaf rags -- classics all, though only the first was issued by his sometime champion John Stark. The following year yielded Joplin's own publication of the School of Ragtime -- Exercises (6) for Piano, as revealing as it is brief, as Joplin takes one avuncularly by the arm to demonstrate how ragtime is to be articulated, and to caution, "the 'Joplin ragtime' is destroyed by careless or imperfect rendering, and very often good players lose the effect entirely, by playing too fast." The string of masterpieces -- for Joplin was now a master, indeed, of the secret of infusing the rag formula with the most substantively varied expressiveness -- continued through 1908 with Sugar Cane, Pine Apple Rag, and Fig Leaf Rag, only the last issued by Stark. Fig Leaf is Joplin at his most graciously relaxed, assured, and charming. Fig Leaf's syncopations possess the mellowed subtlety one encounters in Weeping Willow and Nonpareil, among others, the first strain's sinuous cantilena answered by the folk-like melody of the second in thirds. Harmonic piquancy takes on a lush richness in the chordal writing and octaves of the trio, carrying an impassioned melody, while the final strain's full-handed oscillations over the steady rag bass and slithering octaves embody an elegantly insouciant zest, which Artie Matthews would make his own in his series of Pastime slow drags.

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