Printed: | 1994 | Author: | Susan Curtis |
Publisher: | University of Missouri Press | ISBN: | 0826209491 |
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From Kirkus Reviews , April 1, 1994
Not really a biography, but an episodic social history centering on the life
of ragtime composer Scott Joplin. Historian Curtis (Purdue; A Consuming
Faith, not reviewed) has selected as her focus several key events in
Joplin's life: his rural upbringing in Northern Texas; his undocumented visit
to the 1903 St. Louis Exposition, where he may have performed; his
years in Sedalia, Mo., where he created his greatest works; the Chicago
World's Fair, another venue that he likely visited; and pre-WW I New
York City. Part of the author's frustration (and the reader's) is what she
calls Joplin's ``invisibility''; little documentary evidence, whether in Joplin's
own hand or from contemporary newspaper accounts, survives to verify
the often sketchy memories of his younger contemporaries. Curtis
correctly states that part of the reason for Joplin's failure to leave much of
a mark on his time was that he was a transitional figure, still subscribing to
Victorian ideas of culture even as he announced a new musical world
through his compositions. And she correctly notes the inherent racism in
white America that denied Joplin performance opportunities or even much
income from his work. But in analyzing Joplin's failure to leave a mark on
either white or black culture, Curtis misses a fundamental point about his
music: Joplin accepted the myth that European music was superior to his
own ragtime and so wasted his last years toiling on the failed classical
opera Treemonisha. The work's failure in both white and
African-American communities was due to its old-fashioned,
turn-of-the-century musical character, not to either racism or
provincialism, as the author suggests. The text is also unfortunately marred
by the author's use of trendy academic jargon. While it's refreshing to
read a book about a popular musician written by someone with real
credentials as a historian, Curtis sadly lacks enough knowledge about
music to carry off her task. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP.
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