Wall Street Rag

Description

"Panic in Wall Street, Brokers feeling melancholy" — so runs the first of the captions Joplin had printed over each strain of this rag, a rare thing in his work. Then come "Good times coming," "Good times have come" and "Listening to the strains of genuine negro ragtime, brokers forget their cares": the four strains laid out as a story. It dates from 1909, while the financial panic of 1907 was still fresh.

As the captions promise, the first strain begins subdued and the music brightens as it goes; it opens in C major, and the last strain moves to F major and ends there. The note count is low and the melodic outline stays clearly visible.

The technical load is light for an intermediate piece; the work here is making the change of expression the captions describe — moving from melancholy to good times over the same left-hand pattern, by altering only the weight of the chords and the way the melody sings. In a rag with a programme, the design of the sound is the performance.

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