Scott Joplin - Silver Swan Rag 1914 (Ragtime Piano Synthesia)

[@SQUAREHEADSAM1912]

Silver Swan Rag was Joplin’s last composition that still survives today, he made numerous other pieces after this but the whereabouts of those pieces is currently unknown. Silver Swan Rag was made in 1914, very shorty after composing it a piano roll company (national records music company) in Chicago expressed interest in make a roll of the brand new not yet published piece. Joplin sent his one and only manuscripts to the company where they transcribed it into a heavily arranged roll with extra chords and doubling of octaves. The roll was published without problem, but soon faded from existence after Joplin’s death, with no traces the piece ever existed. National Music Company held onto the original manuscript that Joplin wrote, the company went bankrupt in the early 1960s and the manuscript they had preserved had vanished and have never been seen since. In 1970 the roll was rediscovered and transcribed by Richard Zimmerman, and was confirmed to be a long lost Joplin piece. Zimmerman made his own more accurate manuscripts of Silver Swan based on the discovered roll, he took out e extra chords and subtracted the doubled octaves artificially recreating the original version of Silver Swan. The piece is very melancholy and gives the impression Joplin was his life, a life that is now tragic but was once very grand. He was likely already suffering from Dementia by the time he composed it.

[@andrewbarrett1537]

Further: While it is *possible* that Mr. Joplin took the train or otherwise up to St. Johnsville to pitch his new rag to that company for issuance on music rolls; I feel it is far more likely that he simply hand-copied the manuscript and sent a copy of it via mail to that firm, and they liked it so much that they put it out despite there being no published sheet music (or commercial audio recording) available of the piece to help "push" the roll sales (i. e. the roll had to "sell itself"). I feel that he probably sent another hand-copied manuscript of "Silver Swan" to QRS as well, and both firms likely just punched out whatever was on the manuscript, explaining the striking similarity of both arrangements of this piece by these two unrelated firms. While rare, piano-roll-only rags were not totally unknown at this time, although "Silver Swan" was ahead of the trend (being issued in 1914); the real craze for piano-roll-only tunes "hit" from 1915-1918 and was spearheaded by the U. S. Music Roll Co. who bought the copyright rights to various pieces (rags, waltzes, fox trots etc) from the composers and put them out as "exclusives" on their own label. Several very rare pieces by Nat Johnson, Lora M. Hudson, and Paul Pratt are examples of this. Some other companies joined the fun; for example Charley Straight started a series of roll-only-rags in 1916 at QRS, which continued into his tenure at Imperial Music Roll Co. in 1917 and through 1921. As other artists joined Imperial, Straight (presumably) encouraged them to compose or at least commit to roll some of their unpublished rags; notably those by Arnold Johnson and Roy Bargy. Bargy's rags in particular were so excellent that several publishers (Forster; Sam Fox; and Will Rossiter) became so interested in them that they brought them out as sheet music in the 1921-1923 era, years after their initial appearances 1919-1920 on rolls. Likewise, Lora Hudson's "Phantom Valse" (the initial unpublished U S Music Roll smash hit that started their craze for unpublished roll-exclusive music in 1915) was so popular that the US Co were obligated to enter into an agreement with a publisher (I think again Forster) to bring it out as sheet music. Unfortunately a good many of the piano-roll only tunes (of which I doubt there were ever more than 200-250 of any genre at any time; they were far outnumbered by tunes, however obscure today, which WERE published as sheet music), were never originally published and thus destined for great obscurity for many decades. Some were later 'saved' in the ragtime revival by having their rolls recut and also transcribed into sheet music (by various people including Frank Himpsl; Tom Brier; Benjamin Intartaglia; Vincent Johnson and others). These were mostly rags. The unpublished waltzes, marches etc were frequently not recut nor transcribed, so their future musical survival is very fragile today. It's too bad no original copies of the Silver Swan manuscript are known to survive, and that Mr. Joplin's other manuscripts were left out for the garbageman in 1962 (or 63?) in New York City. The version printed in the NY Public Library "Collected/Complete Works of Scott Joplin" folio was transcribed from roll to sheet music by Richard Zimmerman and Donna McCluer (with help/input from William Bolcolm), and also brought out as a single sheet published by the Maple Leaf Club of Los Angeles, all in the 1970s. Hope this info helps!

[@SQUAREHEADSAM1912]

@@andrewbarrett1537Thanks for the further information. I appreciate how much you know about the subject. However I find it Likely that Joplin sent the manuscript to the company opposed to actually being there in the city. By 1914 he was in a “financial situation”(I doubt it was as bad as some claim, but definitely still was a problem) and likely didn’t travel that far. As for the QRS cut of the roll, I totally for it existed. So yes it’s possible he sent them re written manuscripts of the piece, but I always assumed that QRS just re-issued the National records roll opposed to receiving manuscripts.

[@dlynskey4310]

I've noticed that u've kinda going through a what i would call a scott joplin phase😂 but thats a good thing cause it means that i can replace more old joplin records recordings btw itsremco I'm almost done with my kiwi rag mastered the right and left at the same just gotta master it at the speed that i want this rag to be played and also i finished a piano sonata i want to make rags concertos symphonies etc and as it turns out i counted wrong my can *ACTUALLY* only barely reach a 9th (about the same length as Alexander Scriabin's hands so yeah)❤❤

[@itsRemco]

I just want to be done with the remaining Scott Joplin anf Ragtime uploads

[@GOL1912]

Might want to do something about the description. You put "Antoinette" instead of "Silver Swan Rag"! 😆

[@itsRemco]

@@GOL1912 Oops! Thanks for pointing out haha 😁