S4/E4 With seconds to spare

I spoke below (or above, for some of you…) about the present rag’s idiosyncratic form, and similarly of the one for winds that had preceded it. Joplinesque tradition involves four strains, within the structure AABBACCDD. I only once managed that, in my opus 69 rag for brass quintet, which one can hear online. As to op. 1, no. 4, found below, in program notes that will eventually inform this exegesis I ascribe the rag’s structural unorthodoxy to quirks of personality in certain orchestral members, viz., flute and horn. The first interrupts the proceedings and indulges in a flamboyant (but non sequitur) cadenza; the latter decides abruptly to slow the work’s jaunty final strain down, and begins to tap into expressive depths which only he can descry!

But recall, this started out as a piano morceau. That flute cadenza is based squarely on the one occurring just before the final statement of the principal theme in Beethoven’s early Rondo in G. The horn solo just before my rag’s end mimics the closing passage to the same composer’s Les Adieux Sonata, where the energy slowly coils up, only to be spent suddenly in a virtuoso final sprint up the keyboard!

I was lucky that I chose Columbia for my undergraduate work. I planned to study chemistry, but switched over to music, something that would not have been possible at my second choice, MIT! Certain teachers and students disparaged this impertinent test tuber in music electives that I took before formally switching majors. Similarly, in graduate school–where I wrote and later orchestrated this Holiday Rag–the piano major was deemed unseemly as fellow traveler in composition or orchestration classes. But I get around, ever eschewing whatever station I was assigned on Henry Ford’s assembly line.

Best wishes for the new year to family, friends and followers here on this blog.