Ragtime and Sonata Forms: Appendix 1: recapitulation rag--on the return of B strains as closing themes in the literature

I opted to glide over the question of whether there was a precedent for recapitulation of an A strain or a B strain in ragtime literature in the body of the full argument.  This is not because the question is unimportant, it's very relevant.  However, it seemed that for those unfamiliar with ragtime the concepts of time-space and proportional correspondence between a generic sonata form and a Joplin rag could be done without digressing into the question of whether Scott Joplin ever brought back an A or a B strain at the end of his rags.  He didn't.

I learned this because I made a point of studying all of Joplin's rags, but one of the beauties of scholarship is other people have done work you don't have to replicate.  Toward the end of finding out how many rags ended with B strains I consulted the standard work that gets into the nuts and bolts of the modular construction of many a classic rag.  Ragtime fans probably already know that it is ...



Rags and Ragtime: A Musical History
David A Jasen and Trebor Jay Tichenor
copyright (c) 1978 by David A. Jasen and Trebor Jay Tichenor
originally published by Seabury Press, New York, in 1979
Dover Publications Inc.
ISBN 9780486144573
ISBN 10 0486259226
ISBN 13 9780486259222

So we know Scott Joplin did not really make a point of ending rags by bringing back B strains.

James Sylvester Scott, however did.  The work of Jasen and Tichenor proved immensely valuable for charting out which of the ragtime composers made any habit of bringing back A or B strains in their works.  For instance, among those classified by Jasen and Tichenor as early rag composers Charles Hunter would bring back A or B strains to close out his rags.  Tom Turpin was known to close rags with an A strain now and then, too.  In fact among his listed works he was more likely to end with A or B strains than with C or D strains.

Among those listed by Jasen and Tichenor as "early ragtime" composers, Charles Leslie Hunter was most likely to bring back A or B strains at the end of his rags by dint of how many he composed.  With 32 listed rags, Charles Leslie Hunter ended twelve of them with the A strains used at their respective starts.  Fifteen of Hunter's rags end with B strains.  It is in the Joplin school and later ragtime compositional practice that C or D strains become more observably the norm.

Among the Joplin school, which is generally defined as Scott Joplin, James Sylvester Scott, and Joseph F. Lamb, neither Joplin nor Lamb made a habit of ending their rags by bringing back A strains.  James Scott, however, ended fifteen of his rags with B strains.  Lamb used B strain endings for "Reindeer", "Alabama Rag",  and some of his other rags.  He generally had a more Joplinesque approach, using variants on the AABBACCDD pattern.  Lamb's distinction within the Joplin school was being more likely to open with minor key themes, which was unusual in ragtime through much of its history but which, as Edward Berlin has pointed out in his research, was more common in the earlier days of ragtime.

Outside the Joplin school, it's clear that George Botsford regularly brought back B strains to close his rags, as with "Grizzly Bear Rag".  May Aufderheide recapitulated A and B strains rather than introduce new material beyond a C strain. She was also more likely to move from theme to theme without having the Joplinesque norm of an AABBA pattern preceding a CCDD.

In summary, if we ask whether there are precedents in ragtime for bringing back themes that appear in the first half of a rag at the end, the answer is unequivocally "yes".  Within the Joplin school, in fact, it's arguable that Joplin's persistent use of A, B, C and D strains make his rags less amenable to being recomposed into sonata forms than the rags of James Scott or Joseph Lamb.  If you're familiar with a variety of rags you'll find that bringing back B strains is what Hepokoski and Darcy might term a second level default.  While not necessarily a first choice decision on ragtime structure in any traditional sense, there is plenty of reason to regard the return of B strains in ragtime literature as another reason why ragtime and sonata forms are ultimately pretty easily compatible.