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04年阅读第五篇
The acknowledged “King of Ragtime” was the black pianist and composer Scott Joplin. Joplin (1868-1917), originally from Texarkana, Texas, began his career as an itinerant pianist. By 1885 he was in St. Louis, playing in honky-tonks and sporting houses. He went to Chicago briefly (1893) to try his luck in the entertainment halls that had sprung up around the Word’s Fair, then in 1894 to Sedalia, Missouri, to stay until the turn of the century. His first published rag, Original Rags, came out in March, 1899; later the same year appeared Maple Leaf Rag, named for a saloon and dance hall in Sedalia. The work has an instant and resounding success, and by the time of his death Joplin had published more than thirty original rags, and other piano pieces, songs, and arrangements. He had even larger aims: in 1902 he finished a ballet score called Rag Time Dance, and in 1903 the opera A Guest of Honor, unpublished and now apparently lost, in 1911 came another opera, Treemonisha. The artistic success of these larger works is debatable, but that of Joplin’s piano rags is not; they can only be described as elegant, varied, often subtle, and as sharply incised as a cameo. They are the precise American equivalent, in terms of a native style of dance music, of minuets by Mozart, mazurkas by Chopin, or waltzes by Brahams. They can both be lovely and powerful, infectious and moving-depending, of course, on the skill and stylishness of the pianist, for they are not easy music technically and they demand a clean but “swinging” performance.
43. According to the passage, which of the following is an accurate statement about Maple Leaf Rag?
A. It was Joplin’s favorite composition.
B. Its name came from an establishment in Missouri.
C. It was published in March 1899. D. Its popularity grew slowly.
答案是a 可我认为应该是c
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