Searching for an Identity
Leeuwarden: Ragtime for the Contrite Soul, Op.2 No.12
SM-000223509
- Alternative title
- Leeuwarden: Ragtime voor de Berouwvolle Ziel
- Composer
- Antonio Martinez
- Publisher
- Antonio Martinez
- Genre
-
Jazz / Ragtime
- Instrumentation
- Piano
- Scored for
- Solo
- Type of score
- For a single performer
- Duration
- 3'54"
- Difficulty
- Very difficult
- Year of composition
- 2015
Description
This is the twelfth destination in the collection of the series "Ragtime at the Red Light District." This rag is set at Leeuwarden's De Weaze.
The main character in this piece is a 31-year old high school teacher that was on spring break. The person went to the Netherlands on a mission as he he looked to perform good deeds to the citizens of Leeuwarden. The reason was that the city was where he grew up and performed infamous pranks.
So the main character began with an Ash Wednesday confession at the famous St. Bonifatius and continued with operating a successful soup kitchen inside Cambuur Stadion to help the city's poorest people as well as constructing a statue of flowers on Ascension Thursday with a message of "Pride for 13 Centuries" as a dedication to the city itself.
However, the main character still felt empty as he power walked into De Weaze with dusk turning into nightfall on the eve of Pentecost Sunday. He sees a woman that he remembered pranking as a child 16 years earlier that devastated the woman. The only chance the main character had to make up with the woman is through music; so the person composed a melody for her and she forgive the main character, whose road to repentance completed with a night out on the town.
This piece has a format of 4AABBCC4DAEE. Scott Joplin's "The Maple Leaf Rag" and "Paragon Rag" were the basis for this piece, with the latter's influence evident in the B section. There is also a Russian influence as Genari Karganov's "Scherzo" can be felt in the C section.