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Work

Scott Joplin

Scott Joplin Composer

Binks's Waltz   

Performances: 2
Tracks: 2
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Musicology:
  • Binks's Waltz
    Year: 1905
    Genre: Other Keyboard
    Pr. Instrument: Piano
While Joplin is known for his ragtime music and while the quasi-kitschy title of this piece suggests a sort of jazzy or popular style to the music, Binks' Waltz is a fairly straightforward though colorful waltz. It has been suggested that the Bink in the title relates to children in some fashion; the disarming, almost innocent character of the music certainly keeps things quite in a youthful spirit. That said, the work's charm is not without a good measure of sophistication, evidenced by the lively, somewhat mischievous main theme and the challenging piano writing.

Binks' Waltz opens with a brief introductory passage that seems to augur a sort of ragtime style. But the music does not carry through on the promise, offering instead a colorful main theme whose first seven notes repeat before a series of bright, resolute chords close out the primary melodic statement. Those bouncy seven notes permeate much of the thematic material here, always appearing in double phrases, however. A second subject continues the merriment and rhythmic verve, imparting a somewhat carefree manner in chords mixing upper and lower register sonorities. Further thematic material evolves imaginatively, but the main theme makes several returns and dominates this colorful, light masterwork.

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