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Scott Joplin (; 1867/1868 – April 1, 1917) was an African-American composer and pianist. Joplin achieved fame for his ragtime compositions and was dubbed the "King of Ragtime Writers". During his brief career, he wrote 44 original ragtime pieces, one ragtime ballet, and two operas. One of his first pieces, the "Maple Leaf Rag", became ragtime's first and most influential hit, and has been recognized as the archetypal rag. Joplin was born into a musical family of railway laborers in Northeast Texas, and developed his musical knowledge with the help of local teachers. Joplin grew up in Texarkana, where he formed a vocal quartet, and taught mandolin and guitar. During the late 1880s he left his job as a laborer with the railroad, and travelled around the American South as an itinerant musician. He went to Chicago for the World's Fair of 1893, which played a major part in making ragtime a national craze by 1897. Joplin moved to Sedalia, Missouri, in 1894 and earned a living as a piano teacher; there he taught future ragtime composers Arthur Marshall, Scott Hayden and Brun Campbell. Joplin began publishing music in 1895, and publication of his "Maple Leaf Rag" in 1899 brought him fame. This piece had a profound influence on subsequent writers of ragtime. It also brought the composer a steady income for life, though Joplin did not reach this level of success again and frequently had financial problems. Joplin moved to St. Louis in 1901, where he continued to compose and publish music, and regularly performed in the St. Louis community. The score to his first opera ''A Guest of Honor'' was confiscated in 1903 with his belongings because of a non-payment of bills, and is now considered lost. He continued to compose and publish music, and in 1907 moved to New York City to find a producer for a new opera. He attempted to go beyond the limitations of the musical form that made him famous, without much monetary success. His second opera, ''Treemonisha'', was not received well at its partially staged performance in 1915. In 1916 Joplin descended into dementia as a result of syphilis. He was admitted to a mental institution in January 1917, and died there three months later at the age of 49. Joplin's death is widely considered to mark the end of ragtime as a mainstream music format, and in the next several years it evolved with other styles into stride, jazz, and eventually big band swing. His music was rediscovered and returned to popularity in the early 1970s with the release of a million-selling album recorded by Joshua Rifkin. This was followed by the Academy Award–winning 1973 movie ''The Sting'' that featured several of his compositions including "The Entertainer". The opera ''Treemonisha'' was finally produced in full to wide acclaim in 1972. In 1976, Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize. ==Early life== According to author, Edward A. Berlin, "One tenacious myth tells us that Joplin was born in Texarkana, Texas, on November 24, 1868. The location is easily dispensed with: Texarkana was not established until 1873." However, based on a letter discovered by musicologist John Tennison in 2015 in the December 19, 1856 edition of the Times-Picayune, it is clear that Texarkana was established as a place-name by no later than 1856. Consequently, it appears possible that Joplin, born 12 years later, could have been born in Texarkana. Nonetheless, and despite evidence to support such a conclusion, some insist that Joplin was born in Linden, Texas, either in late 1867 or early 1868.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://www.edwardaberlin.com/scott_joplin__brief_biographical_sketch_33423.htm )〕 He was the second of six children (the others being Monroe, Robert, William, Myrtle, and Ossie) born to Giles Joplin, an ex-slave from North Carolina, and Florence Givens, a freeborn African-American woman from Kentucky.〔Jasen & Tichenor (1978) p. 82.〕〔Kirchner (2005) p. 32.〕 The Joplins subsequently moved to Texarkana where Giles worked as a laborer for the railroad while Florence was a cleaner. Joplin's father had played the violin for plantation parties in North Carolina, and his mother sang and played the banjo.〔 Joplin was given a rudimentary musical education by his family and from the age of seven he was allowed to play the piano while his mother cleaned.〔Berlin (1994) p. 6.〕 At some point in the early 1880s, Giles Joplin left the family for another woman, leaving Florence, his wife, to provide for her children through domestic work. Biographer Susan Curtis speculated that his mother's support of Joplin's musical education was an important causal factor in this separation. His father argued that it took the boy away from practical employment that would supplement the family income.〔Curtis (2004) p. 38.〕 According to a family friend, the young Joplin was serious and ambitious, studying music and playing the piano after school. While a few local teachers aided him, he received most of his music education from Julius Weiss, a German-Jewish music professor who had immigrated to the United States from Germany.〔 Weiss had studied music at university in Germany and was listed in town records as a ''Professor of music''. Impressed by Joplin's talent, and realizing his family's dire straits, Weiss taught him free of charge. He tutored the 11-year-old Joplin until he was 16, during which time Weiss introduced him to folk and classical music, including opera. Weiss helped Joplin appreciate music as an "art as well as an entertainment,"〔 and helped his mother acquire a used piano. According to his wife, Lottie, Joplin never forgot Weiss and in his later years, when he achieved fame as a composer, sent his former teacher "...gifts of money when he was old and ill," until Weiss died.〔Albrecht (1979) pp. 89–105.〕 At the age of 16, Joplin performed in a vocal quartet with three other boys in and around Texarkana, playing piano. In addition he taught guitar and mandolin.〔Berlin (1994) pp. 7–8.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Scott Joplin」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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