Intermediate
Havana Rag
3:12
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Browse piano sheets by Maurice Kirwin on Zen Virtual Piano. Maurice Kirwin was born Morris J. Kerwin, Jr. in 1881 in Saint Louis, Missouri, to the carpenter Morris Kerwin, Sr., and his bride Ellen Tiernan. A carpenter’s son who took a different name stood at the threshold between private life and the music trade. By the 1890s his father appeared to have been working at times as a foreman, so was perhaps able to provide music lessons that went a bit beyond what was taught in the public schools of St. Louis. A carpenter who sometimes worked as a foreman, perhaps able to pay for lessons, suggests a household with room for music. Altering his name to Maurice Kirwin, he got two more works published when he was just 18, a cakewalk and his Evening Star, both issued in Saint Louis, the latter under his own banner. They were relatively polished, arranged by professionals including D. S. De Lisle, who had worked with Tom Turpin’s Harlem Rag, and the cakewalk, issued under the Drumheller Music Company banner, sold relatively well. A changed name and works arranged by professionals suggest a young composer taking the trade seriously. His African Pas’ (1902), his first real piano rag, was issued in Saint Louis late in the year by the esteemed ragtime publisher John S. Stark, which gave Maurice some of the best promotion he would ever enjoy. In a typical Stark blurb, Kirwin was called “easy and brilliant - good to catch the ragtime swing.” A publisher’s line of praise for a young composer shows the tone in which he was presented. The Havana Rag followed in 1904 as his second Stark issue, and while it is not really evocative of Cuban themes of the time, it had a relatively moderate run while promoted by the publisher. A second rag less dynamic than the first but still given a run shows how much a publisher’s promotion could carry. As early as 1903 he was shown working a day job as a bookkeeper, and in that year he managed to have his clever schottische West End Belle issued by the Bafunno Brother’s Music Company, his last known publication. Before 1910 he was working with a flour mill as a salesman and remained in that business for the rest of his career, and in 1916 the Saint Louis directory named him Vice President of the Independent Flour Company. A last known publication in the same year as a bookkeeping job places his composing alongside ordinary employment. More than a century after the pieces were first issued, some of them are heard at ragtime festivals and on YouTube. Recognition arriving too late for the composer himself gives a short career a late audience.
Browse piano sheets by Maurice Kirwin on Zen Virtual Piano.
Maurice Kirwin was born Morris J. Kerwin, Jr. in 1881 in Saint Louis, Missouri, to the carpenter Morris Kerwin, Sr., and his bride Ellen Tiernan. A carpenter’s son who took a different name stood at the threshold between private life and the music trade. By the 1890s his father appeared to have been working at times as a foreman, so was perhaps able to provide music lessons that went a bit beyond what was taught in the public schools of St. Louis. A carpenter who sometimes worked as a foreman, perhaps able to pay for lessons, suggests a household with room for music.
Altering his name to Maurice Kirwin, he got two more works published when he was just 18, a cakewalk and his Evening Star, both issued in Saint Louis, the latter under his own banner. They were relatively polished, arranged by professionals including D. S. De Lisle, who had worked with Tom Turpin’s Harlem Rag, and the cakewalk, issued under the Drumheller Music Company banner, sold relatively well. A changed name and works arranged by professionals suggest a young composer taking the trade seriously.
His African Pas’ (1902), his first real piano rag, was issued in Saint Louis late in the year by the esteemed ragtime publisher John S. Stark, which gave Maurice some of the best promotion he would ever enjoy. In a typical Stark blurb, Kirwin was called “easy and brilliant - good to catch the ragtime swing.” A publisher’s line of praise for a young composer shows the tone in which he was presented. The Havana Rag followed in 1904 as his second Stark issue, and while it is not really evocative of Cuban themes of the time, it had a relatively moderate run while promoted by the publisher. A second rag less dynamic than the first but still given a run shows how much a publisher’s promotion could carry.
As early as 1903 he was shown working a day job as a bookkeeper, and in that year he managed to have his clever schottische West End Belle issued by the Bafunno Brother’s Music Company, his last known publication. Before 1910 he was working with a flour mill as a salesman and remained in that business for the rest of his career, and in 1916 the Saint Louis directory named him Vice President of the Independent Flour Company. A last known publication in the same year as a bookkeeping job places his composing alongside ordinary employment. More than a century after the pieces were first issued, some of them are heard at ragtime festivals and on YouTube. Recognition arriving too late for the composer himself gives a short career a late audience.
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Common questions
The publishing name of Morris J. Kerwin, Jr., a St. Louis ragtime composer born in 1881 who had pieces published from the age of 18 and later worked in the flour business.
African Pas’ (1902), his first real piano rag, and Havana Rag (1904), his second Stark issue.
The schottische West End Belle, issued by the Bafunno Brother’s Music Company, was his last known publication.