"The Cascades"

Here is "The Cascades" written in 1904 by Scott Joplin in honor of the St. Louis World's Fair.
Rudi Blesh in "Scott Joplin, The Complete Piano Works" describes this work of Joplin--
"It is program music with its subject the Cascade Gardens, the notable watercourse of fountains, lagoons, and cascades that was a central feature of the Fair. A virtuoso piece, it too flows and ripples while building an infectious swing."
"In the body of Joplin's work, The Cascades looks in both directions. The first theme has an ascending arpeggio similar to the one in Maple Leaf, but this time in sixths. The fourth theme leans harmonically on Maple Leaf while the trio shows an interesting development in a "stride" bass that imtermittantly breaks into thundering octaves reminiscent of those characteristically shouted out by Sousa's trombones."
This MIDI sequence was originally done by Irwin Schwartz. I edited it to more closely approximate a hand-played performance.

The MIDI performances available at this site are all performance copyright 1995-1999 by John E. Roache and may NOT be used for any commercial use whatsoever without permission. The MIDI sequences may be freely distributed for non-commercial use only in their compressed .ZIP form with all attached text files.

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