After having great success with a number of piano rags, Scott Joplin decided to try something on a grander scale, so he wrote the opera "Treemonisha," which was published in 1911.

The story is very preachy--the message is that, to escape from poverty and superstition, black people must stop buying mojos, because they don't work anyway, and get a good education instead. It comes across as very simplistic nowadays, but there is some very good music in it.

Joplin's own orchestration is lost, so we only have a piano score. Today, there is a new orchestration done by Gunther Schuller, but unfortunately Schuller's version hasn't made it to Youtube.

This is the final scene of the opera--the Youtube viewers make some interesting comments, for a change:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGyrC1CacZk



Here are some more excerpts arranged for a small chamber group:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFegvgiukgw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGCvAMSutFY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gyo9F-wC7Q

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FESHICW6nZw

written by Lester A. Walton
March 5, 1908

"Since syncopated music, better known as ragtime, has been in vogue, many Negro writers have gained considerable fame as composers of that style of music. From the white man's standpoint of view he at present is inclined to believe that after writing ragtime the negro does not figure."

"There are many colored writers busily engaged even now in writing operas. Music circles have been stirred recently by the announcement by Scott Joplin, known as the apostle of ragtime, that he is composing scores for grand opera."

"Scott joplin is a St. Louis product who gained prominence a few years ago by writing 'Maple Leaf Rag,' which was the first ragtime instrumental piece to be generally accepted by the public. Last summer he came to New York from St. louis and it was the opinion of all that his mission was one of placing several of his ragtime instrumental compositions on the market. The surprise of he musicians and publishers can be imagined when Joplin announced that he was writing grand opera and expected to have his scores finished by summer."
"
From ragtime to grand opera is certainly a big jump--about as great a jump as from the American Theatre to the Manhattan and Metropolitan Opera houses."

"The composer is just in his thirties and is very retiring in manner. Critics who have heard a part of his new opera are very optimistic as to his future success."

Is Scott Joplin the guy on PBS who teaches viewers how to play Piano in fifteen minutes?