Gladiolus Rag
Romantic Piano solo 4 min
In brief

This Rag has a lively, playful drive with syncopated figures and almost speech-like melodic turns; aim for a light, swinging balance rather than exaggerated showiness. You will face concrete challenges with Tempo rubato (3.1/5) — in practice that means applying small expressive timing shifts to phrases without breaking the underlying pulse — and with Sustain pedal (3.1/5), which requires precise releases to keep syncopations clear while supporting harmonic lines. Within the composer’s output, the piece belongs to his piano solo repertoire that helped popularize ragstyle while emphasizing melody and dance-like character. I am not offering a recommended recording here because I am not fully certain of a single, widely recognized reference for this exact work.

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Sheet music

Public-domain sheet music on IMSLP ↗

Is this the right work?
MusicCoach difficulty
38/100
Elementary
Likely range : 26–50/100
Confidence : 38% · to confirm
BeginnerIntermediateAdvancedVirtuoso
Exam grade
About grade 4

Estimated from our difficulty score, not taken from an exam syllabus. Checked against 333 works on the ABRSM syllabus: the exact grade is right 7 times out of 10, and within one grade 99 times out of 100.

Difficulty estimate by MusicCoach on a scale of 1 to 100.

Where this work sits
050100

Most works cluster between 45 and 65: a small score gap often marks a real step. The highlighted bar shows this work among those for the same instrument.

The MusicCoach difficulty measures a work's overall demands (technique, reading, stamina) on a shared 0-100 scale, consolidated from editorial and pedagogical reference points (Henle, exam syllabuses, curation) and our own analyses. It measures neither musical value nor the practice time YOU will need: two musicians of the same level can experience the same work very differently depending on their strengths (hands used to octaves, quick sight-reading…). The confidence reflects how many reference points sit behind the score and how well they agree — a lightly documented score is flagged “to validate”. For a truly personal bearing, the diagnostic and your space compare each work to YOUR estimated level, which the score alone cannot do.

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Relative difficulty
28%
Among Scott Joplin
14%
Era Romantic
Genre
Estimated skills
Pedaling
Sustain pedal
1
Style
Romantic style
1
Rhythm
Tempo rubato
1
Style
Character and style
1
Interpretation
Phrasing
1
Rhythm
General rhythm
1
What to play next?

Each suggestion combines difficulty gap, risk, confidence and skill overlap. The first two cards in each column are the most useful pedagogically.

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