Portal:Classical music/Selected article/5

"Magnetic Rag" (July 21, 1914) is a ragtime composition for piano by Scott Joplin. It is significant for being the last rag which Joplin published in his lifetime, three years before his death in 1917. It is also unique in form and in some of the musical techniques employed in the composition. "Magnetic Rag" was written by Joplin at the end of his career, when interest in ragtime was waning. He was suffering from the latter stages of syphilis, the disease from which he died only three years later. Possibly as a result of Joplin's mood at this time, the piece expresses a melancholy almost entirely unheard in his earlier works. While many of Joplin's piano rags fit the classic rag scheme, "Magnetic Rag" is unique in its form of AABBCCDDAA. Due to its novelty at the time, the form has been described as "progressive".