"The Entertainer" is a 1902 classic piano rag written by Scott Joplin.

It was sold first as sheet music by John Stark & Son of St. Louis, Missouri, and in the 1910s as piano rolls that would play on player pianos. The first recording was by blues and ragtime musicians the Blue Boys in 1928, played on mandolin and guitar.

As one of the classics of ragtime, it returned to international prominence as part of the ragtime revival in the 1970s, when it was used as the theme music for the 1973 Oscar-winning film The Sting. Composer and pianist Marvin Hamlisch's adaptation reached No. 3 on the Billboardpop chart and spent a week at No. 1 on the easy listening chart in 1974.

The Recording Industry Association of America ranked it at No. 10 on its "Songs of the Century" list.

"The Entertainer" is subtitled "A Rag Time Two Step", which was a form of dance popular until about 1911, and a style which was common among rags written at the time.

Its structure is: Intro–AA–BB–A–CC–Intro2–DD.

It is primarily set in the key of C major; however, for the C section (commonly referred to as the "Trio"), it modulates to F major, then shifts back to C major for the D section. The B section contains an indication that the melody is to be played an octave higher on the repeat.

In the June 7, 1903, St. Louis Globe-Democrat, contemporary composer Monroe H. Rosenfeld described "The Entertainer" as "the best and most euphonious" of Joplin's compositions to that point. "It is a jingling work of a very original character, embracing various strains of a retentive character which set the foot in spontaneous action and leave an indelible imprint on the tympanum". Joplin may have performed the piece at a fundraiser in Parsons, Kansas, on April 27, 1904.

Suggested by the rag's dedication to "James Brown and his Mandolin Club", author Rudi Blesh wrote that "some of the melodies recall the pluckings and the fast tremolos of the little steel-stringed plectrum instruments". Stark issued an arrangement of the piece for two mandolins and a guitar.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entertainer_(rag)