Why is Maple Leaf Rag so famous?

Alongside The Entertainer, Scott Joplin’s Maple Leaf Rag stands as his most well-known composition and one of the outstanding pieces of ragtime music by any composer. Its fame can be attributed to its innovative style and the quality of its melodic writing, features that led to commercial success and to the piece exerting a huge influence on composers that followed and in culture more broadly. Here then is the full story of one of our most searched-for pieces here on 8notes (over 20 versions of Maple Leaf Rag Sheet music here).

Early ragtime innovation

Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899, is both an early work by Scott Joplin and an early example of ragtime musical from. These were works written mostly for piano that are characterised by syncopated rhythms, lively melodies and often tricky 'Um-cha' left hands. The style is a fusion of different cultures—its rhythms owe something to the African music, its use of march and polka-like structures to American and European music. Though Joplin was not the inventor of the style, he did much to refine and to popularise it, earning him the nickname 'King of Ragtime.’

Musical characteristics

More than many rags, Maple Leaf is tricky to play. It consists of high levels of syncopation and, in the trio section, very large leaps in the left hand.

Its instantly recognisable main melody is encapsulated in the opening four bars, which are capped by a syncopated figure and sweeping upward arpeggios before the second strain that so neatly rounds off the first section. The subsequent section both develops and recapitulates the main material before new material is introduced in the subdominant trio, the second section of which seems an especially effective echo and response to the main material of the piece.

Overall, the consistent musical characteristics of the work, the brilliant thematic material and the unerring cohesiveness of the whole makes the piece extremely satisfying to play and listen to.

A ‘Titanic’ commercial success

The work was a huge commercial success, reportedly selling over a million copies of sheet music during the composer’s lifetime, though some have disputed this figure. The work soon started to achieve success in other ways, being orchestrated for use by dance and brass bands and turned into a song with words by Sydney Brown:

It was even included in the White Star Line songbook, so may have been played on the Titanic’s ill-fated maiden voyage in 1912.

Enduring popularity

Unlike other of Joplin’s works, notably ‘The Entertainer’, which initially fell out of fashion due to changing tastes, the work continued to be a success down the years. It was, for example recorded multiple times in each of the three decades following its initial release, featured in the 1930 gangster movie ‘The Public Enemy’ and consistently remained the most common work found on 78rpm records.

In 1970 U.S. pianist Joshua Rifkin released a recording of Scott Joplin piano rags, with Maple Leaf Rag headlining the programme. The album eventually sold over a million copies. The album was nominated for Grammy Awards and did much to revive Joplin as one of the most significant U.S. composers.

Joplin’s enduring significance

That significance may be considered two-fold. On the one hand his brilliant ragtime works as exemplified by Maple Leaf Rag (but also many others, such as The Entertainer, Rose Leaf Rag , The Easy Winners etc.) speak for themselves, their enduring popularity evidence of their quality and of the composer’s genius.

On the other hand, the rag stye, which Scott Joplin did so much to cultivate, and his own status as a composer of African heritage meant that he paved the way or the many composers that followed him in the field of jazz. He was also the first African-American composers to break into the wider classical scene, writing not just ragtime pieces but also a ballet and two operas. In recognition of this, in 1976 the composer was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his 1911 opera Treemonisha, which had had to wait 56 years after his death for its first performance.