Monday Music: Maple Leaf Rag (Scott Joplin)

According to Wikipedia: [“Maple Leaf Rag”] was one of Joplin's early works, and became the model for ragtime compositions by subsequent composers. It is one of the most famous of all ragtime pieces. As a result, Joplin became dubbed the "King of Ragtime" by his contemporaries. The piece gave Joplin a steady if unspectacular income for the rest of his life.

Despite ragtime's decline after Joplin's death in 1917, the "Maple Leaf Rag" continued to be recorded by many well-known artists. The ragtime revival of the 1970s brought it back to mainstream public notice once again.

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Monday Music: Solace - A Mexican Serenade (Scott Joplin)

The first time I heard the music of Scott Joplin was when the 1973 film, The Sting, came to the theater. Joshua Rifkin had revived Joplin's ragtime music with his recordings just three years earlier. "Solace," is an achingly beautiful masterpiece that conveys a sense of stillness, perhaps even a quiet longing.

The song was recently used on the Star Trek: Picard series. In the episode, "Stardust City Rag," we hear the song played at the keyboard as the camera panned through some sort of intergalactic bar scene in a locale that is rife with danger. A little later in the episode, we hear Picard tell former Star Fleet officer Seven of Nine who is now a vigilante ranger, "There is no solace in revenge."

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