Kismet Rag (string quartet)

Title: Kismet Rag

Composer: Scott Joplin and Scott Hayden, arr. David Gable

Instrumentation: Violin 1; Violin 2; Viola; Cello

Printout: 8 pages

Note: Kismet Rag is one of four compositions Joplin co-wrote with fellow African-American musician Scott Hayden in the early 1900s. The contributions of each are not clear, but Joplin was the more experienced composer, and Hayden was a mere 20-something at the time, so it seems likely that Joplin’s influence on Hayden was greater than the reverse. Kismet Rag was not published until 1913, two years before Hayden’s untimely death by tuberculosis at the age of 33. Joplin himself died in 1917 at about 48 years of age (his precise date of birth is not known).