The 79th annual Tony Awards happened over the weekend, and one of the standout performances was “Ragtime” performed by the Ragtime cast. While the musical originally debuted on Broadway in 1998, the revival has gained much acclaim and even received the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival. Ragtime, which was adapted from E.L. Doctorow’s novel of the same name, features music written by Stephen Flaherty, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and the book by Terrence McNally.
Ragtime mostly contains music in the style of, well… ragtime. The most defining characteristics of the genre being a syncopated chromatic melody over a more steady, march-like bass line. Ragtime was born out of black communities in the late 1800s before being popularized and commercialized for wider audiences, or should I say, whiter audiences. In the video of the Tony Award performance of the piece, you can hear the features of ragtime on full display, as well as the racial tensions that were prevalent at the time (and how it mirrors us now).
The Music of “Ragtime”
The piece begins with solo piano, reflecting the rise of ragtime from a more intimate medium before finding widespread acclaim. Flaherty stated in a PlayBill article, “Our orchestrator, Bill Brohn, was so taken with the notion of starting such a large production with only a solo piano, that he kept my original piano arrangement for the entire beginning until the ensemble vocals enter.”
The piece continues to grow as three communities are introduced: the white people of New Rochelle, the black community of Harlem, and the immigrants who have come to New York in pursuit of the “American Dream.” Ahrens also stated in the PlayBill article, “One of my favorite lyrics in this song, believe it or not, is ‘La la la la la,’ which to me implies the blithe obliviousness of the wealthy white New Rochelle folks. Stephen thought I’d written those syllables as placeholders, but I meant those la las!”
As the music swells into a musical interlude, we see the tension rising through the three communities, with the white people dismissing the existence of black people and the black people dismissing the existence of the immigrants. In the xylophone, we continue to hear a more chromatic melody, but the horns continue to play the same two notes over and over in a syncopated rhythm that mirrors the building tensions between the communities before reaching the grand finale of the song.
Flaherty said, “Every time that the word ‘Ragtime’ is sung throughout, we never go to the ‘tonic chord.’ It is always followed by two beats of silence—until the very end, where the song finally achieves its resolution. This was meant to keep the ideas moving forward, never stopping or resolving.” And the ending gives us that resolution in such a powerful way, with a resolution from B diminished to B major(I).
How “Ragtime” Is Still Relevant Today
“Ragtime,” while written to show the racial tensions that were prevalent in the early 1900s, does an excellent job at highlighting how those racial tensions are still alive and well today in the United States. One thing that really stood out to me in this song is that it’s rather simple; it’s the same melody over and over again, but in slightly different keys. Every time one of the communities is highlighted for a verse, nothing in the melody changes. It remains a rather simple ragtime melody. I believe this is the biggest aspect of the piece. Everyone is singing the same song, listening to the same music, but they are all weary of each other. “Ragtime” holds a mirror to our society and forces us to look at the social issues that are all too similar to those of the early 1900s.
