Louis Moreau Gottschalk | |
|---|---|
 Photograph byMathew Brady (late 1850s–early 1860s) | |
| Born | Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-05-08)May 8, 1829 |
| Died | December 18, 1869(1869-12-18) (aged 40) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
| Occupations |
|
| Signature | |
 | |
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869) was an American composer,pianist, andvirtuoso performer of his ownromantic piano works.[1] He spent most of his working career outside theUnited States.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was born on May 8, 1829, inNew Orleans, Louisiana, to Edward Gottschalk and Aimée Marie Bruslé. He had six brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings by his father's biracial mistress.[2] Gottschalk's family lived for a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanade in theVieux Carré. He later moved in with relatives at 518 Conti Street; his maternal grandmother Bruslé and his nurse Sally were bothSaint Dominican Creoles. Gottschalk was therefore exposed to a variety of musical traditions and played thepiano from an early age. He was soon recognized as aprodigy by the New Orleansbourgeois establishment, making his informal public debut in 1840 at the newSt. Charles Hotel.
Only two years later, at age 13, Gottschalk left the United States and sailed toEurope, as he and his father realized aclassical training was required to fulfill his musical ambitions. However, theParis Conservatoire rejected Gottschalk's application without hearing him on the grounds of his nationality;Pierre Zimmerman, head of the piano faculty, commented that "America is a country of steam engines". Gottschalk eventually gained access to the musical establishment through family friends, but important early compositions likeBamboula (Danse Des Nègres) andLa Savane established him as a genuinely American composer, and not a mere imitator of the European written tradition; they were a major artistic statement as they carried a legacy of music of enslaved African people in a romantic music context, and as such they were also precursors of jazz. They still stand as the first examples of Louisiana Creole music in classical music culture. After a concert at theSalle Pleyel,Frédéric Chopin remarked: "Give me your hand, my child; I predict that you will become the king of pianists."Franz Liszt andCharles-Valentin Alkan, too, recognized Gottschalk's extreme talent.[3]
After Gottschalk returned to the United States in 1853, he traveled extensively; a sojourn inCuba during 1854 was the beginning of a series of trips toCentral andSouth America.[4] Gottschalk also traveled toPuerto Rico after hisHavana debut and at the start of hisWest Indian period. Gottschalk was quite taken with themusic he heard on the island, so much so that he composed a work, probably in 1857, entitledSouvenir de Porto Rico; Marche des gibaros, Op. 31 (RO250). "Gibaros" refers to thejíbaros, or Puerto Rican peasantry, and is an antiquated way of writing this name. The theme of the composition is a march tune which may be based on a Puerto Ricanfolk song form.[5]
At the end of the tour, Gottschalk rested in New Jersey before returning toNew York City. There, he continued to rest and took on a very youngVenezuelan student,Teresa Carreño. Gottschalk rarely took on students and was skeptical of prodigies, but Carreño was an exception, and he was determined that she would succeed. With his busy schedule, Gottschalk was only able to give her a handful of lessons, yet Carreño would remember him fondly and performed his music for the rest of her days. A year after meeting Gottschalk, she performed forAbraham Lincoln and would go on to become a renowned concert pianist earning the nickname "Valkyrie of the Piano".
.jpg)
In late 1855 and early 1856, Gottschalk made connections with several notable figures of the New York art world, including the sculptorErastus Dow Palmer, composer and musician George William Warren andHudson River School landscape painterFrederic Edwin Church.[6] Like Gottschalk, Church had traveled extensively in Latin America (primarilyEcuador andColombia) and produced a series of large-scale canvases of South American subject. Gottschalk dedicated aMazurka poétique to Church, who gave Gottschalk a small (now unidentified) landscape painting.[7] Gottschalk also possibly collaborated with Warren on his 1863The Andes, Marche di Bravoura, a solo piano piece inspired by Church's large-scale South American painting of 1859,The Heart of the Andes.[8]
By the 1860s, Gottschalk had established himself as the best known pianist in theNew World. Although born and raised in New Orleans, he was a supporter of theUnion cause during theAmerican Civil War. Gottschalk returned to his native city only occasionally for concerts, but he always introduced himself as a New Orleans native. Gottschalk composed the tarantella,Grande Tarantelle, Op. 67, subtitledCélèbre Tarentelle, during 1858–64.
In May 1865, Gottschalk was mentioned in aSan Francisco newspaper as having "travelled 95,000 miles by rail and given 1,000 concerts". However, he was forced to leave the United States later that year because of an alleged affair with a student at theOakland Female Seminary inOakland, California. Gottschalk denied any wrongdoing, saying that the subsequent publication of this incident was an attempt to undermine his reputation by a rival of thepiano manufacturerChickering & Sons, the same brand of piano that Gottschalk used on his tours.[10] He never returned to the United States.
Gottschalk chose to travel to South America, where he continued to give frequent concerts. During one of these concerts, at theTeatro Lyrico Fluminense inRio de Janeiro,Brazil, on November 24, 1869, Gottschalk collapsed fromyellow fever.[11] Just before collapsing, he had finished playing his romantic pieceMorte! (translated from Portuguese as "Death"), although the actual collapse occurred just as Gottschalk started to play his celebrated pieceTremolo. Gottschalk never recovered from the collapse.
Less than a month later, on December 18, 1869, at age 40, Gottschalk died at his hotel inTijuca, Rio de Janeiro, probably from an overdose ofquinine. According to an essay byJeremy Nicholas for the booklet accompanying the recording "Gottschalk Piano Music" performed by Philip Martin on the Hyperion label, "He died ... ofempyema, the result of a ruptured abscess in the abdomen."
In 1870, Gottschalk's remains were returned to the United States and were interred at theGreen-Wood Cemetery inBrooklyn, New York City.[12] His burial spot was originally marked by a magnificent marble monument, topped by an "Angel of Music" statue, which was irreparably damaged by vandals in 1959.[13] In October 2012, after nearly 15 years of fundraising by the Green-Wood Cemetery, a new "Angel of Music" statue, created by sculptors Giancarlo Biagi and Jill Burkee to replace the damaged one, was unveiled.[14]
Gottschalk's music was very popular during his lifetime and his earliest compositions created a sensation in Europe. Early pieces likeBamboula,La Savane,Le Bananier andLe Mancenillier were based on Gottschalk's memories of the music he heard during his youth inLouisiana and are widely regarded as the earliest existing pieces of creole music in classical culture. In this context, some of Gottschalk's work, such as the 13-minuteoperaEscenas campestres, retains value. Gottschalk also utilized theBamboula theme as a melody in hisSymphony No. 1:A Night in the Tropics. A melody from Gottschalk'sSouvenirs d'Andalousie (Memories of Andalusia) forms the basis of a highly popular 20th century piece "Malagueña" byErnesto Lecuona.
Many of Gottschalk's compositions were destroyed after his death or are lost. MusicologistRichard Jackson served as the editor of a 1973 published collection of Gottschalk’s piano music and concurrently organized an exhibition of Gottschalk and his music at theNew York Public Library.[15]
Various pianists later recorded his piano music. The first important recordings of his orchestral music, including the symphonyA Night in the Tropics, were made forVanguard Records byMaurice Abravanel and theUtah Symphony Orchestra.Vox Records issued a multi-disc collection of his music, which was later reissued on CD. This included world premiere recordings of the original orchestrations of both symphonies and other works, which were conducted byIgor Buketoff andSamuel Adler.
In 1984, Nimbus Records issuedThe Lady Fainted, a selection of piano fantasies, caprices, meditations and paraphrases played byAlan Marks.Lambert Orkis recorded a selection of Gottschalk's music on an 1865 Chickering concert grand in 1988 as part of The Smithsonian Collection of Recordings.[16] The music of Gottschalk was used in the soundtrack for theMichel Deville filmAux Petits Bonheurs [fr], which was played byNoël Lee on a Steinway piano and released by Erato Records in 1994. Beginning in the 1990s,Philip Martin recorded most of Gottschalk's extant piano music forHyperion Records.[17]
AuthorHoward Breslin wrote a historical novel about Gottschalk titledConcert Grand in 1963.[18]
A version of Gottschalk'sBamboula, with added lyrics, was recorded in April 1934 by trumpet player Abel Beauregard's dance band, the Orchestre Créole Matou from the French Caribbean Guadeloupe island.[19] This is the first recording of this composition, as the first 'classical piano' recordings of Gottschalk's works were not recorded until 1956, by American pianistEugene List.[20] Other recordings related to the specific bamboula rhythm heard by Gottschalk in New Orleans' Congo Square and used on his famous 1845 compositionBamboula can be found on a 1950 Haitian voodoo recordingBaboule Dance (three drums).[21] On the 1962 Cuban folk tuneRezos Congos (Bamboula, Conga Music).[22] Comments by musicologistBruno Blum are included in each of the above releases. New Orleans singer and pianistDr. John's recording ofLitanie des Saints fromGoin' Back to New Orleans was inspired by Gottschalk'sSouvenir de Porto Rico.[23]
| Orchestra | |
|---|---|
| Piano |
|
| Related | |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
