![]() ![]() Their timing is a coincidence, and all were envisioned before the widespread calls for diversifying the canon over the past few years.īut after long development processes and pandemic delays, they have converged at a moment of intense interest in bringing back works by Black composers like Joplin, who was almost entirely forgotten until the ragtime revival decades after his death. “Treemonisha” experiments seem to be everywhere these days: Three very different versions have recently been presented, in the United States, Canada and France. When it did, its brilliance, shortcomings and unfinished aspects made it a work begging to be completed - giving creative artists room to experiment boldly with this “new phase of musical art.” It would be more than half a century before the opera finally premiered. His orchestrations and revisions, made with hoped-for stagings in mind, were lost. “Its production would prove an interesting and potent achievement,” the critic added, “and it is to be hoped that sooner or later it will be thus honored.”ĭesperate to prove himself in a genre he perceived as more serious than the ragtime piano pieces for which he was renowned, Joplin died in 1917 having tried again and again to mount “Treemonisha,” to no avail. In June 1911, all the reviewer had to go on was Joplin’s 230-page piano-vocal score. The anonymous critic who wrote these bold words didn’t have a performance of Scott Joplin’s “Treemonisha” to evaluate, or a recording. ![]() “He has created an entirely new phase of musical art and has produced a thoroughly American opera.” ![]()
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