SWEDISH RAGTIME HOME PAGE

This page contains contemporary Swedish ragtime compositions written by Peter Andersson (b. 1968), Sune "Sumpen" Borg (1931-2002), Ragnar Hellspong (b. 1944), Oskar Janner (b. 1968), Peter Lundberg (b. 1942), Oleg Mezjuev (b. 1966), Joakim Stenshäll (1962-2009), Kimo Viklund (b. 1952) and Kjell Waltman (b. 1960), plus a few MIDI sequences of Swedish syncopated music from the 1910's (one-steps, two-steps etc.).

Also included here is an international ragtime section, which contains rags written by Ezequiel Pallejá (b. 1943) from Argentina, David Beattie (b. 1942), Paul Copeland (b. 1947) and Hamish Davidson (b. 1983) from Australia, Christoph Schmetterer (b. 1978) from Austria, Benjamin Intartaglia (b. 1981) and Gilles Monfort (b. 1981) both from France, Dénes Dosztán (b. 1984) and Tamás Ittzés (b. 1967) from Hungary, Colm O'Brien from Ireland, Ted Jones (b. 1947) from New Zealand, Mateusz Watroba (b. 1971) from Poland, Martin Jäger (b. 1953) from Switzerland, plus some early rags, cakewalks and two-steps from Austria, Canada, Denmark, France and Germany.

The section of contemporary (U.S.) rags includes the works of James F. Andris (b. 1938), Donald Ashwander (1929-1994), Frank French (b. 1952), Hal Isbitz (b. 1931), Glenn Jenks (b. 1947), Brian Keenan (b. 1971), Riccardo La Spina (b. 1962), Tom McDermott (b. 1957), Max Morath (b. 1926), James E. O'Briant (b. 1947), Ronald Ross (b. 1933), William Rowland (b. 1948), Jack Rummel (b. 1939), William Ryden (b. 1939), William M. Shockley (b. 1949) and David Thomas Roberts (b. 1955). Roberts is considered by many to be the foremost contemporary ragtime composer.

Some classic rags are also included here, several of them sequenced by Karl Johnsson (b. 1979), a young ragtime fan from Stockholm. Listen to the masterworks written by ragtime's greatest composers like Scott Joplin, James Scott, Joseph F. Lamb, Tom Turpin, Charles L. Johnson et al.

Syncopated piano novelties were popular in the years between 1918 and 1928. Zez Confrey (1895-1971) was the most successful composer of this complex piano style. This section has a few syncopated piano novelties written by Roy Bargy (1894-1974) and Charley Straight (1891-1940), all sequenced by William Rowland.

Also featured here is the new Terra Verde music. I will use a to indicate these MIDI files, so you can't miss them. The term Terra Verde comes from Latin and means green earth. It was adopted in 1995 by David Thomas Roberts (in conjunction with his ragtime colleagues Scott Kirby and Frank French) to define this new branch of syncopated art music and to grant it its own point of reference, independent of the word ragtime and its popular associations.

Terra Verde is a lovely mix of several musical styles: ragtime, Latin-American music (tangos, habaneras etc.), Romantic music of the 19th century (Nazareth, Gottschalk), bluegrass and other styles. It should not be referred to as ragtime, simply because it is not ragtime. For more information visit The Terra Verde Corner. There you can read articles about Terra Verde written by Jack Rummel and the terraverdian triumvirate (i.e. David Thomas Roberts, Scott Kirby and Frank French). Listen to the MIDI files and enjoy the innovative sounds of this lovely music! Terra Verde is here to stay!

On this page you will also find professional ragtime guitar arrangements in tablature format brought to you by Tom Thomason (b. 1947) from Gothenburg, Sweden. You'll have to download a program called TABLEdit 2.61 (677K) to be able to view his tablatures and to listen to the music. TABLEdit was developed by Matthieu Leschemelle from France and can also be downloaded from the TABLEdit Home Page.

On the new ragtime polls section you will be able to vote in various ragtime related polls. Go there and pick your "favourite composer", "favourite pianist", etc. The subjects will vary from time to time, so be sure to come back again.

Download swerags.zip (1,44 MB; 245 compositions!) if you want to get all the MIDI files at once. The ZIP archive comes with a readme.txt file, which lists all the MIDI files on this web site. Some of the sequences can also be downloaded from the Primeline Chemical Systems Midi Library.

The following codes were used to mark sequencers, who have contributed to this page: Benjamin Intartaglia B.I., Charles D. Booty C.B., Christian Reichel C.R., Dénes Dosztán D.D., Ezequiel Pallejá E.P., Frank French F.F., Hamish Davidson H.D., Irwin Schwartz I.S., James F. Andris J.A., John Cowles J.C., James E. O'Briant J.O., John Roache J.R., Karl Johnsson K.J., Mateusz Watroba M.W., Oskar Janner O.J., Oleg Mezjuev O.M., Riccardo La Spina R.L., William Rowland W.R. and William M. Shockley W.S.. Live-played MIDI files are marked with an (L).

Feel free to e-mail your comments to Peter Andersson, James F. Andris, David Beattie, Charles D. Booty, Paul Copeland, John Cowles, Hamish Davidson, Dénes Dosztán, Frank French, Ragnar Hellspong, Benjamin Intartaglia, Hal Isbitz, Tamás Ittzés, Oskar Janner, Glenn Jenks, Karl Johnsson, Ted Jones, Martin Jäger, Brian Keenan, Peter Lundberg, Riccardo La Spina, Tom McDermott, Oleg Mezjuev, Gilles Monfort, James E. O'Briant, Colm O'Brien, Ezequiel Pallejá, Ronald Ross, William Rowland, Jack Rummel, Christoph Schmetterer, Irwin Schwartz, William M. Shockley, Tom Thomason, Kimo Viklund and Kjell Waltman Mateusz Watroba to let us know what you think about our compositions, guitar arrangements and MIDI sequences, or simply sign my guestbook.