Silver Swan Rag

"The Silver Swan" by Scott Joplin is a ragtime composition for piano. It is the only known Joplin composition to be originally released on piano roll instead of in musical notation.

Form

The overall structure of the piece is:

The structure is unusual for a Joplin rag; Edwards characterized it as a rondo. The recapitulation of the A strain at the end is also found in "Magnetic Rag" and "Scott Joplin's New Rag", which appeared about the same time.

The introduction and the A strain are both in B-flat major. At the start of the B strain, the piece modulates to G minor. Edwards describes this section as "well developed".

The C strain is in E-flat major. Jasen and Tichenor wrote that it "sounds as though it consists of three fragments put together".

Publication history

"Silver Swan Rag" was never copyrighted or published in Joplin's lifetime. Though two companies (QRS Music Roll Company and National) issued piano roll recordings of it in 1914, the piece was neglected for many years.

Silver Swan

Silver Swan may refer to:

Silver Swan (automaton)

The Silver Swan is an automaton dating from the 18th Century and is housed in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Teesdale, County Durham, England. It was acquired by John Bowes, the museum's founder from a Parisian jeweler in 1872.

The swan, which is life size, is a clockwork driven device that includes a music box. The swan sits in a "stream" that is made of glass rods and is surrounded by silver leaves. Small silver fish can be seen "swimming" in the stream.

When the clockwork is wound the music box plays and the glass rods rotate giving the illusion of flowing water. The swan turns its head from side to side and also preens itself. After a few moments the swan notices the swimming fish and bends down to catch and eat one. The swan's head then returns to the upright position and the performance, which has lasted about 32 seconds, is over. To help preserve the mechanism the swan is only operated once each day at 2pm.

The mechanism was designed and built by John Joseph Merlin (1735-1803) in conjunction with the London inventor James Cox (1723–1800) in 1773.

Silver Swan (comics)

The Silver Swan is a fictional character appearing in DC Comics publications and related media. A major adversary of Wonder Woman, the Swan possesses the superhuman ability to fly, as well as to generate a destructive sonic cry. She first appeared in 1982 in Wonder Woman #288 (volume 1), written by Roy Thomas and illustrated by Gene Colan. Since then, the character has undergone several updates as comic book continuities have evolved and shifted. Indeed, there have been three different Silver Swans since the character's debut, including Helen Alexandros, the original Silver Swan; Valerie Beaudry, the second Silver Swan, debuting in 1988 in Wonder Woman #15 (volume 2); and Vanessa Kapatelis, the third Silver Swan, debuting in 2001 in Wonder Woman #171 (volume 2). The backstories of all three characters are inspired by Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale The Ugly Duckling; similar to the tale's titular protagonist, Alexandros, Beaudry and Kapetelis all believe they are undesirable or unwanted, only to find themselves transformed into extraordinarily beautiful (and vengeful) super-powered women.