Pine Apple Rag

Pine Apple Rag is a ragtime musical arrangement for piano composed by Scott Joplin in 1908. Although not as popular as the ragtime classic, "Maple Leaf Rag", it is one of Joplin's best works, featuring some surprisingly rich melodies and some thoughtful fingering, especially during the intro. It is slightly different from the other ragtime compositions as it has a slightly lower tempo and a tropical accent throughout the song. Just like other rags, it has four sections, with the notation "ABCABCD".

This song is a multi-strain ragtime march with athletic bass lines and offbeat melodies. Each of the four parts features a recurring theme and a steady bass line, standard for all ragtime compositions of the time.

As ragtime declined after Joplin died in 1917, "Pine Apple Rag" was one of the many pieces that went down, until the ragtime revival of the 1970s bought it back to the public eye, alongside all the other Joplin rags.

Scott Joplin liked eating fruits and other nutritional foods, which could be the reason why he composed so many rags titled after healthy foods, such as "Peacherine Rag", "Sugar Cane Rag" and yours truly "Pine Apple Rag", out of many.

Background

"Pine Apple Rag" is thought to have been named after Joplin's favorite fruit, the pine apple, or the highest-sold fruit of Sedalia, Joplin's residence since 1904, although there's no direct evidence to prove so. Joplin arrived in Sedalia in 1894 as a touring musician and stayed with the family of Arthur Marshall, who later became one of Joplin's students and a ragtime composer in his own right. Joplin played as a solo musician at dances and at the major black clubs in Sedalia, one of them the "Maple Leaf Club" (which is thought to be the origin for the title of "Maple Leaf Rag").

Joplin had composed quite a few rags before "Pine Apple Rag" - his first published composition was "Original Rags", which was published in March of 1899, which preceded "Maple Leaf Rag" by a half-year, and a lot more, the chances of "Pine Apple Rag" doing well were not really bright. However, it did not disappoint, giving Joplin a spectacular income for the next year, and is now considered one of his best works. The exact events that took place right before the publication of "Pine Apple Rag" cannot be generalized, however, as there are many narratives that contradict each other.

Structure

AA BB A CC DD

"Pine Apple Rag" is a lively, upbeat rag with a jumpy left hand that initially starts out in the key of B♭ Major before moving on to E♭ Major in the third section, before modulating back to B♭ Major. It is arguably a very carefully-constructed rag - the syncopations during the transition of one section to the other was novel at the time. It is one of the many "feel good" rags that can be compared to classical music.

The difficulty level of this piece is generally regarded as "moderate" by pianists. Since this song is written in a marching tempo, the sheet music is easy to read, and probably the hardest part is the intro, which only requires a fluent left hand, just like any other ragtime piece. This piece is modeled on the structure based on some other Joplin rags, such as "The Entertainer". The right hand rhythm is easy to play, and it could've been more difficult.

Ragtime Revival

There have been numerous revivals since newer styles supplanted ragtime in the 1920s. First in the early 1940s, many jazz bands began to include ragtime in their repertoire and put out ragtime recordings on 78 rpm records. A more significant revival occurred in the 1950s as a wider variety of ragtime genres of the past were made available on records, and new rags were composed, published, and recorded. In 1970, Joshua Rifkin In November 1970, Joshua Rifkin released a recording called Scott Joplin: Piano Rags on the classical label Nonesuch, which featured as its first track the "Maple Leaf Rag". It sold 100,000 copies in its first year and eventually became Nonesuch's first million-selling record. The album was nominated in 1971 for two Grammy Award categories - Best Album Notes and Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra). But at the ceremony on March 14, 1972, Rifkin did not win in any category. In 1979 Alan Rich in the New York Magazine wrote that by giving artists like Rifkin the opportunity to put Joplin's music on disk Nonesuch Records "created, almost alone, the Scott Joplin revival".

In 1973 The New England Ragtime Ensemble (then a student group called The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble) recorded The Red Back Book, a compilation of some of Joplin's rags in period orchestrations edited by conservatory president Gunther Schuller. It won a Grammy for Best Chamber Music Performance of the year and was named Top Classical Album of 1974 by Billboard magazine. The movie The Sting (1973) brought ragtime to a wide audience with its soundtrack of Joplin tunes. The film's rendering of "The Entertainer", adapted and orchestrated by Marvin Hamlisch, was a Top 5 hit in 1975.

The 1970s also saw the first performances of Joplin’s second, though only surviving, opera entitled "Treemonisha" (c. 1911). In 1972, the Atlanta Symphony and the Morehouse College Music Department gave the first full performance of the opera. In 1975, the Houston Opera gave the first fully produced performance of Treemonisha. Gunther Schuller was responsible for the orchestration for the performance and the subsequently released recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

"Pine Apple Rag" was also one of the pieces that were bought back to the mainstream public notice. In the 1950s, "Pine Apple Rag" was made available in several records, and, more significantly, in the 1970s, it was included in Rifkin's compilation album. Alongside "Maple Leaf Rag" and "Magnetic Rag", this piece received special notice from the musical pundits, and was recognized as one of Joplin's finest compositions and one of ragtime's most important standards.

Popularity and Legacy

There are conflicting accounts on the sales of "Pine Apple Rag" and its popularity back in the day. Rumor has it, however, that it was as popular as "Maple Leaf Rag", that contradicts every other account there was. However, the actual sales, and the honest answer of whether it became a major hit or not, remains unknown. In the present day, however, this piece's popularity has been rivaled by only "Maple Leaf Rag". Joplin's first biographer, Rudi Blesh, has not spoken of "Pine Apple Rag" in his book, and thus, a lot about this song remains a mystery.

In addition to sales of sheet music, "Pine Apple Rag" was also popular in orchestrations for dance bands and brass bands until Joplin's death in 1917. Although the success of this piece possibly never matched that of "Maple Leaf Rag", it was regarded as catchy nonetheless, and played in jive bars and black clubs all over Sedalia. "Pine Apple Rag" was a personal favorite of Scott Joplin's, although it was "Maple Leaf Rag" that made him famous.

The earliest surviving version of "Pine Apple Rag" is the one that he wrote - this piece's recording/sheet music has never been lost, and is now preserved in the Library of Congress. While Joplin never played an audio recording - he composed mainly on paper and not on piano - his playing is preserved in seven piano rolls that Joplin recorded for the Aeolian Company. These were to be used in mechanical player pianos. All seven were made in 1916. Berlin theorizes that by the time Joplin made these recordings he may have been experiencing discoordination of the fingers, tremors and an inability to speak clearly, symptoms of syphilis, the disease that took his life in 1917. The recording of "Maple Leaf Rag", on the Aeolian Uni-Record label from June 1916 was described by biographer Blesh as "shocking ... disorganized and completely distressing to hear". The piano rolls, although the truest record of Joplin's playing, did not reflect his skills earlier on in his career.

This song was a selection in the White Star Line songbook of the early 1910s, and had possibly been played onboard the RMS Titanic during its ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912. Other rags in the songbook were "Palm Leaf Rag", "Maple Leaf Rag", "Fig Leaf Rag" and "Wall Street Rag".

Although "Maple Leaf Rag" is the piece found most on 78 rpm records, "Pine Apple Rag" is not far behind. It is the second most popular choice of ragtime pianists after "Maple Leaf Rag". It is still in print, and still popular. Since the copyright has expired, however, this song, alongside Joplin's other songs, is in the public domain.

All in all, "Pine Apple Rag" has been described by contemporaries to be "catchy, thoughtfully-constructed, with a swinging left hand that remains steady for the remainder of the song". Some compare it to "Maple Leaf Rag", and some of his other rags, as it gives them the feeling that we are in a bar from the 1900s with "the pianist playing Scott Joplin ragtimes while people drank merrily".

A revised version of this song has been used in the 1973 movie, "The Sting" as backing music.

"Pine Apple Rag" stands out from Joplin's other rags because of its comparatively lower tempo and tropical accent. It is now a mandatory part of ragtime pianists' repertoire, and Scott Joplin is partly defined by this piece, alongside "The Entertainer" and "Maple Leaf Rag".

See also

Maple Leaf Rag

References

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