Page 20 - NWS Nov 2024 Playbill

PROGRAM Notes

ELITE SYNCOPATIONS AND MAPLE LEAF RAG (continued)
Scott Joplin would become an integral force in the evolution of “ragtime” music that
swept the United States in the late 1800s, spurred on by success at the 1893 World’s
Fair in Chicago.
Joplin’s traveling musician biography is missing a great deal about dates, places
and reactions, but his performances and education in Sedalia, MO, about 90 miles
east of Kansas City are more clearly documented. He wrote his famous “Maple Leaf
Rag” there around 1898. It would serve as a model for future rags and contributed

significantly to Joplin being crowned the “King of ragtime writers.” While living in St.
Louis he produced some of his best-known works, including “The Entertainer” and
“March Majestic.”
The legacy of “Maple Leaf Rag” is quite astounding. It is among the earliest highly
successful printed pieces of sheet music. Royalties sustained Joplin throughout his
life, and subsequent arrangements were frequently created for dance and brass
bands for years. “Maple Leaf Rag” is constructed in four parts with Joplin’s signature
vigorous off-beat rhythms and melodies.
©2024 Michael Christie
SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN E MINOR, OP. 95, B. 178,
“FROM THE NEW WORLD”
Antonín Dvořák (b. 1841 Nelahozeves, d. 1904 Prague)
Composed: 1893, premiered in New York City
Instrumentation: pairs of woodwinds, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones,
one tuba, timpani, percussion and strings
Duration: approximately 45 minutes
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Antonín Dvořák is the preeminent Czech composer of the 19 century. He owed his
initial recognition to Johannes Brahms, who encountered his music somewhat early
in Dvořák’s career and saw to it that he was enabled to spend time in Vienna for
further study. Dvořák clearly thought of himself as a champion of Czech music, and he

incorporated significant Czech musical, literary and historical elements into his works.
Dvořák was a clear adherent of the artistic thinking of 19 -century composers who were
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firmly rooted in the tradition of Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven (and later, Mendelssohn
and Brahms) as a fundamental way of composing. Dvořák’s ethnicity comes through
his compositions by way of his treatment of harmony, melody and rhythm.
By the 1880s, Dvořák was a leading composer with a worldwide reputation. So it
was with notable alacrity that he responded to the offer by a wealthy New York
philanthropist to assume the duties of head of her new American Conservatory. He
came to America in 1892 and stayed for three years, during that time composing
several significant works, including the cello concerto, the “American” string quartet,

and, of course, the ninth symphony.
Dvořák wrote nine symphonies, but Americans are most familiar with his last one,
Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, “From the New World.” Its popularity and success

20 | New West Symphony