Eugenia

Description

Will Rossiter of Chicago published this rag in 1906. Joplin was moving between publishers at this point and heading for New York; seven years after the success of the Maple Leaf Rag, the ragtime craze itself was past its peak.

A compact B-flat major piece of around three minutes, with clear differences of character between its strains. The right-hand syncopation is regular, setting out the basic form of a Joplin rag without complication, and the moderate note count keeps the whole easy to survey.

A manageable intermediate piece for learning the idiom. The left hand holds its round trip — bass, chord, bass, chord — while the right lands behind the beat above it; that meshing alone is enough to make the piece work. Since the strains are similarly built, differentiating them by colour and dynamics is what keeps it from sounding the same throughout.

Ragtime pieces centered on Scott Joplin's syncopated rhythms — a lively American genre that helped pave the way for jazz.