Scott Joplin and Treemonisha

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: greg stephens
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 11:38 PM

now that is why i joined up to Mudcat, i was hoping to find stuff with that level of scholarship and interest. mind you the farting stuff is sort of mildly amusing as well.

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 09:52 PM

Amazing thread. Thanks.

Rick

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: Dicho (Frank Staplin)
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 09:01 PM

I bought the box of two DG LPs with score of "Tremonisha" shortly after the first performance. I regard this version as only partially successful and not a true reflection of Joplin's style. The original was performed in 1915 informally in a New York studio, with piano accompaniment, after Joplin failed to get support. Gunther Schuller used an orchestra of 35 instruments. In Schuller's own words, "'Tremonisha'" is a very special opera ... the result of a cross-breeding of elements- mid-ninteenth century European opera, Afro-American dance forms, and turn-of-the-century American popular (or as they used to call it, semi-classical idioms. (It) is a curious alchemical mixture of musical styles and conceptions..." His orchestration is heavily middle European. He also made some questionable instrumental interpretations- speaking of the pit orchestra- "in those days rarely with banjo and guitar." But why the classical pit orchestra? What was Joplin's vision of the opera?
The feel of what it was like in Arkansas just before 1900 has been lost. Listening to Schuller's score brings up visions of late 19th C. European opera scorings.
Carmen Balthrop as Tremonisha was overly operatic; there is no appreciation of Negro speech or mannerisms of the time. Ben Hanley as Zodzetrick the conjuror was more believable in his performance, as are some of the other minor characters. Some of those connected with the production wished, at a cost to realistic production, to avoid what they felt was "Mammyism" in the original writung.
Lottie Joplin renewed Scott Joplin's copyright in 1938. Vera Lawrence started "work" on Joplin in 1937. Joplin's collected works were published in 1971. I have no idea of what Lawrence's hold over Joplin's work might be. I have several sets of his piano works and they make no mention of copyright ownership. I presume copyright still persists on "Tremonisha" as written, orchestrated and choreographed for the 1975 production.
It seems to me that there would be no restriction on a new group, starting from Joplin's original manuscripts, preparing a new, independent production. I sincerely hope that this will happen.

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: AR282
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 06:44 PM

From what I was told, and I may not have all the details exactly right, is that during the 70s when Jopliniana struck the nation, she wanted to get the opera out as quickly as possible. Understandable.

However, others were vying to record Treemonisha to cash in on Joplkin's new popularity. Lawrence hired a black music professor--shit, I can't recall his name at the moment--to conduct and arrange the music. But she also had Gunther Schuller doing the same thing independently. Then to prevent anyone from getting another version of Treemonisha out before her, she went to court and somehow got everyone else banned from recording and distributing their own versions of the opera.

Then she promptly got into all sorts of trouble for having 2 people arranging and preparing to conduct Treemonisha. A bunch of people that were brought together to work on the projects became good friends. When the war started, they were forced to take sides. Most opted to do what was best for the opera itself, but that's all relative, and that tore many of the friendships apart.

By the time she got it sorted out, the Joplin craze had burned out as was inevitable. Schuller got the nod and his version was recorded. It is extremely good, but it shouldn't be the only version available. I feel cheated not being able to buy as many versions as labels can make. I'd eagerly buy them all.

Think of all the different singers that would do Treemonisha. It could have been a great vehicle for black talent to get noticed. A movie version would have been made. There would Scott Joplin scolarships for musically gifted black students, it would introduce more blacks to classical music and more whites to black folk music traditions which whites generally have no idea how much they are musically indebted to. Joplin would be more in most people's minds than that guy that wrote quaint piano ditties that got used in "The Sting". Recently, I played it for two coworkers who were surprised that Joplin was black. They had always thought he was white!!

Basically, Vera Brodsky Lawrence ruined any chance of that. I didn't know she was dead although it explains why my sources kept using the past tense.

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 03:20 PM

Curious for more details on this, though, as you must know, there will be little more trouble from Vera Brodsky Lawrence, as she passed on about five years ago. What, for instance, is the nature of the "ban"? Is it connected in some way to her edition of "The Complete Works of Scott Joplin"?

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 01:05 PM

I have heard differing versions of Treemonisha. I have a copy done in German that I got from a shortwave broadcast that someone in Sweden recorded. However, if you try to buy any version, you'll only be able to locate the Deutsche Grammophon version. Now maybe that's changed but I don't think so. The reason can be summed up by three words: Vera Brodsky Lawrence. In her attempt to bring Joplin's genius to the world, she screwed him over royally!

Her legal wrangling made it so that no other versions of Treemonisha may be released!!! Imagine only being allowed to hear one version of Mozart or Beethoven? Imagine only hearing one interpretation of Joplin's rags? Lawrence may not have meant to hurt Joplin but she did. I don't know Lawrence but I know people who know her and they are all rather miffed at what she did. She may have damaged Joplin and Treemonisha irreparably. She also destroyed a few friendships along the way.

While I enjoy Schuller's version, I would love to hear a black musicologist take Treemonisha on. That does not appear to be about to happen any time soon. Rarely a year goes by when some label or other goes to court to try and get the ban off Treemonisha but it never succeeds.

Still, it is more important to get the opera into the public mind than it is to boycott the CD set. So please purchase it even though your money doesn't really go to help Joplin in any meaningful way. At least you've heard the opera and it needs to be heard. It never needed to be mired in legal bs. I can only imagine Joplin's reaction if he knew what Lawrence had done to his masterpiece.

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: M.Ted
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 11:41 AM

Damn! That is an amazing surprise, to read that whole thing about Tremonisha, and then to have the midi links right there to listen to! Thanks, AR, and Masato! Also, Masato, thanks for all the other times you have posted related links--it really adds a lot!

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: masato sakurai
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 11:33 AM

Treemonisha MIDI Page, with libretto

~Masato

Subject: RE: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 11:11 AM

Whoops, forgot to include my moniker. The above article is my submission.

Thanks

Subject: Scott Joplin and Treemonisha
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 11:07 AM

Joplin was born in north Texas sometime in 1868 (perhaps as early in 1866). His father, Giles, was an ex-slave who played fiddle and his mother, Florence Givens, was a freeborn woman who played banjo and sang. All the Joplin children, 4 boys and 2 girls, played banjo and fiddle and sang.

Giles eventually purchased a beat up old piano and young Scott was drawn to it, teaching himself to play quite well within a short time. Florence realized that her son was extraordinarily gifted but would not be able to improve without a better piano. She knew of a white woman in town with a beautiful grand piano. Florence offered to do chores for the woman for free provided that Scott would be allowed to practice on her piano. Curious, the woman wanted to hear Scott play. Joplin obliged and the woman was duly impressed. Soon word of the gifted black child circulated among the whites in town. A German music professor in town name Julius Weiss came to hear Scott play and promptly took the boy under his wing. He found the boy very intelligent and possessing perfect pitch. Under Weiss's tutelage, Joplin became a highly proficient musical theoretician with a great love for classical music.

Joplin left Texas although no one is sure when. He appears to have been in Chicago by 1894. He was in St. Louis a short time after that. He eventually settled in Sedalia, Missouri where he joined the Queen City Cornet Band playing cornet. This was the first marching band known to play rags, although white trombonist and former-Sousa sideman Arthur Pryor would soon follow suit with his band. The Queen City Band also played classics including selections from operas and it is believed that Joplin may have learned to write operas from studying these pieces. Joplin also made money playing piano in saloons and whorehouses. Joplin became part of Sedalia's black musical elite along with people like Tony Jackson, Arthur Marshall, Sam Patterson and Louis Chauvin (who was part-Mexican).

In 1897, Joplin wrote a piece he called "Maple Leaf Rag" which he wrote in honor of the Maple Leaf Club--a black gentlemen's club to which Joplin and Marshall belonged. He had been playing parts of it for people as early as 1894. He told Arthur Marshall that "Maple Leaf" would make him the king of the ragtimers. Yet, he was unable to find a publisher until 1899 when John Stark & Sons published the piece and offered Joplin a royalty--something unheard of in that day. Stark was rewarded for his generosity. "Maple Leaf Rag" became an enormously huge hit. Without a doubt, it was the biggest hit in all ragtime. Jelly Roll Morton, a total Joplin devotee as well as a contemporary, called it "the perfect rag".

Unfortunately for Joplin, "Maple Leaf" was such a huge hit, he would never be able to duplicate its popularity despite the fact that he would publish dozens of brilliant pieces over the years. This is not to say that Joplin's subsequent work was not popular. It was. He even was scheduled to tour Europe although no one knows if he ever did. Part of the problem was that Joplin's definition of ragtime differed greatly from the public's. The public saw ragtime as a kind of novelty music with pratfall-type sound effects. They wanted the type of ragtime that descended from the "jig piano" period of the 1870s and 1880s. Joplin, otoh, incorporated huge helpings of classical music into his pieces making them very dignified, complex and genteel.

In 1904, Joplin hit on the idea of writing an opera. That same year, he married his second wife, a 19-year-old named Freddie Alexander (his first marriage ended after the tragic death of his infant daughter). Virtually nothing is known about Freddie--not even a picture survives. We know only that she was born in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1885 or so. Joplin dedicated "Chrysanthemum--An Afro-American Intermezzo" to her. Unfortunately, she was to die of tuberculosis only two months into the marriage. No one is sure how Joplin handled her death or even where he went during that time. The next thing we know of him was that his piece, the extremely beautiful "Bethena", was published in 1905 and may have been written for Freddie.

My favorite Joplin rag is one he co-wrote with Louis Chauvin in 1907. Joplin learned that his old friend was dying in Chicago of syphilis. Joplin wanted to preserve some of Chauvin's brilliant music since Chauvin himself never wrote anything down. He went to Chicago and located him in a sporting house and together they composed "Heliotrope Bouquet" the most etheric and hauntingly beautiful piece of music to come out of the ragtime era. Several months later, Chauvin died at the ripe old age of 25. Joplin, as usual, mourned his friend's death quietly.

In 1907, Joplin and his new wife, Lottie, moved to New York along with John Stark's family. Joplin lived in the Tenderloin district and there he met a brilliant white ragtime composer named Joseph Lamb. Lamb admired Joplin greatly and longed to get his own pieces published by Stark. Stark rejected several of Lamb's pieces. Lamb went to Stark's wife and chatted her up and talked her into introducing him to Joplin. Lamb and Joplin got to talking and Joplin offered to hear Lamb's pieces. Thrilled, Lamb played "Sensation Rag" for Joplin. What Joplin heard was thoroughly black. White ragtimers, even the best such as Percy Wenrich, wrote in the vein of jig piano standards. Lamb's rags, however, were extremely harmonious and complex as only black composers were thought capable of. Yet here was a white man writing highly complex rags. Joplin loved Lamb's music so much that he put his name on them as arranger and told Lamb to take them back to Stark and he would publish them. Lamb did as Joplin had told him and Stark published Lamb's rags. From 1908 to 1919, Stark published a dozen lamb rags--all of them sparkling and beautiful.

Joplin and Stark did not fare as well with one another. Stark became embroiled in a Tin Pan Alley sheet music price war. To save money, he announced that he would no longer pay royalties to his artists--even Joplin. Without that royalty, Joplin would have a very hard time making a living. Embittered, he went shopping for a new publisher. Stark was also angry at Joplin for leaving him as he had given him his first big break. Eventually, Stark would return to St. Louis.

Joplin remained in New York, though. By 1910, his output of rags was noticeably declining. Not from indolence, however, Joplin was back to working on his opera that he had started so long ago in 1904. His original idea was to present an opera with a panorama of American music that would show all Americans who invented those styles: African-Americans. He had no plot, however, and Freddie's death appears to have derailed the whole thing. But now Joplin revived the idea and was working diligently on it. He now had a plot.

Freddie, it would appear, had instilled in Joplin a belief that he could, though his music, deliver a message to African-Americans. That message was to reject superstition and embrace education. He combined this idea with his original idea and forged an opera that he called "Treemonisha".

The basic plot of "Treemonisha" centered around a group of ex-slaves living in an Arkansas community in 1884. They are lost in the darkness of superstition caused by a group of old men called "conjurors". The conjurors sell the townsfolk expensive bags of luck to hang over their doors. The local preacher is name Parson Alltalk, a cynical, ineffectual windbag as his name suggests. Treemonisha, an 18-year-old girl, with mysterious origins (and a thinly-disguised Freddie Alexander), exhorts the townspeople to throw away their bags of luck and embrace education. She had been educated by a white woman at her mother's behest (shades of Florence helping Scott). When the people seem ready to do as she requests, the conjurors abduct her and prepare to hurl her into a wasp nest. Her protege, Remus, arrives and rescues her. The conjurors are seized and the townspeople want to beat them and kill them. Treemonisha impresses upon that it is unacceptable to do wrong in order to get revenge. "Will you forgive these men for my sake?" she asks them. The townsfolk reluctantly agree to forgive the conjurors--for her sake. They then elect Treemonisha as their leader. Treemonisha asks the men if they will follow her, a woman. The men say yes. Only she can lead them. The finale consists of Treemonisha organizing special dance--a rag called "A Real Slow Drag".

While the opera is not terribly strong theatre, the music more than makes up for it. The music can only be described as glorious. The overture is dynamic and breathtaking. Throughout one hears all sorts of music that Joplin wanted to tell America is a product of its black citizens: "We're Goin' Around" tells us the origin of the square dance, "We Will Rest Awhile" the origin of the barbershop quartet (it is sung by field hands in the opera), a banjo is used throughout the opera to show who it was that brought this instrument to America (from Africa not Europe) thereby telling us that bluegrass too is African-American.

But the straight classical pieces are magnificent: "The Sacred Tree" may be the prettiest aria ever sung. "Prelude to Act III" would not be disowned by Bach or Haydn. "I Want to See My Child" is so poignant as to reduce one to tears. "We Will Trust You As Our Leader" contains a complex choral arrangement that not even Mozart's "Figaro" can touch.

The one suprising thing about the opera is that Joplin makes no secret that the superstition he wants to eradicate from the black community is that of organized religion. He fairly explodes the myth of the overly religious black person. Parson Alltalk's sermon, "Good Advice" is a cynical piece and yet, typical of Joplin, it is a beautiful piece that contains a gorgeous and stirring call-and-response.

His message of throwing away organized religion and embracing education as the means to salvation delivered to them by a woman rather than a man is very unusual. We might have expected Joplin to embrace religion and make the hero a man. In this way, "Treemonisha" is highly original and quite daring.

Joplin published his last rags in 1914 and thereafter threw all his energy into a full-scale production of "Treemonisha" to be shown in New York. He advertised for singers in the papers. The problem was, he couldn't get backers or a publisher for his score (despite the fact that a white reviewer raved over it). Joplin was forced to pay for the production out of his own pocket. He also paid for the publication of the score. This was a bad move on his part back then, but a good move for us today. Had Joplin not done so, we probably would not have the score with us today (an earlier Joplin opera "A Guest of Honor" is lost).

By 1915, the opera debuted without costumes, sets or orchestra. Needless to say, it flopped very badly and closed that night.

Joplin began to change for the worse after this. He had for some years been suffering from syphilis, which had no cure in his day. Syphilis eats away at the nervous system if left untreated. The afflicted person suffers from an appropriate loss of motor control and mental capacity. Joplin had hoped that the disease might fall dormant in him as it did in some people. But after the flop and rejection of "Treemonisha" whatever resistance his mind and body were giving the disease vanished. His personality changed drastically. He was no longer able to play the piano. Lottie one day caught him burning an untold number of his manuscripts and stopped him.

After that, Joplin was committed to Manhattan State Hospital in 1916. He continued composing there but his mental state was severely decomposing. He wrote on napkins and toilet paper at a frenetic pace and then would crumple it up and throw it all away. Joplin knew what was happening to him but was powerless to stop it as he sank deeper and deeper into the black hole of senility. He lost the ability to speak and could no longer recognize his wife or friends. On April 1, 1917, still confined in the hospital, Scott Joplin died a most wretched death. He was 48 or so.

A funeral procession rode through the streets of New York as the black community mourned the loss of their genius. Joplin wanted Lottie to have a band play "Maple Leaf Rag" at his funeral. Lottie promised him that it would be so but on the appointed day, was so overcome with grief that she could not bear to hear it. She blamed herself for betraying her husband's final wish because of personal weakness and carried the guilt to her grave some decades later. By 1920, Scott Joplin was already forgotten by all but a few dedicated jazz musicians.

In the 1940's a former Joplin student named Brun Campbell (whom Joplin had nicknamed "The Ragtime Kid"} was determined to revive Joplin's memory. With Lottie's help, Campbell embarked on photo exhibits and magazine articles to remind America of it's forgotten genius. The public largely ignored Campbell, but musical circles took an interest. On college campuses, certain students and professors began studying Joplin. By the 1970's, director George Roy Hill, heard music coming from his son's room that he had encountered in college. It was Joplin. Hill became enamored with this charming music and decided to use it as a soundtrack for a film he was working on. That film, of course, was "The Sting". Hill hired Marvin Hamlisch to do some 30s-type arrangements of the music (even though Joplin was totally unknown in the 30s). The song "The Entertainer" was chosen as the movie's theme and both movie and music became enormously popular. Even as the movie has since cooled off in the public's mind, "The Entertainer" is still in great demand and is still heard (an ice cream truck rolls thru my neigborhood here in Detroit playing it). Oddly, it became about as famous in "Maple Leaf Rag" had been in Joplin's day. Yet, in 1902, when "The Entertainer" was originally published it was nowhere near as famous.

In 1972, "Treemonisha" was performed in public for the first time in 6 decades in a full-scale production to wildly enthusiastic audiences. By 1975, the Houston Grand Opera performed it with the orchestra conducted by jazz great Gunther Schuller. So impressive was the production that Joplin was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1976.

The Houston Grand Opera's version is available today in a double CD set put out by Deutsche Grammophon. It is well worth hearing. The black community has been ignorant of this amazing work for far too long. America has been ignorant of this amazing work for far too long. So do not pass up the opportunity to hear this wonderful, wonderful masterpiece and labor of love whose wholesale rejection drove its brilliant creator into his grave.