"Grace and Beauty" is a

classic rag Classic rag (short for classical ragtime) is the style of ragtime composition pioneered by Scott Joplin and the Missouri school of ragtime composers. These compositions were first considered "classic" by Joplin's publisher, John Stark, as a way t ...

composed by James Scott and published by

John Stillwell Stark John Stillwell Stark (April 11, 1841October 21, 1927) was an American publisher of ragtime music, best known for publishing and promoting the music of Scott Joplin. Early life and education Stark was the eleventh of 12 children born to Adin S ...

in 1909. The A section starts out with a rising melody that slowly descends through repeated patterns. Like many of Scott's rags, the C and D sections contain the echo device reminiscent of the

ring shout A shout or ring shout is an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual, first practiced by African slaves in the West Indies and the United States, in which worshipers move in a circle while shuffling and stomping their feet and clapping their hands. ...

spirituals of the 19th century, while the B section uses a melodic variation of this device.

References

External links

Sheet music of Grace and Beauty at

Wikisource Wikisource is an online digital library of free-content textual sources on a wiki, operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole and the name for each instance of that project (each instance usually re ...

1909 songs Rags Compositions for solo piano Songs with music by James Scott (composer) {{1900s-song-stub