Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18,
1869) was an American composer and pianist, best known
as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano
works. He spent most of his working career outside of
the United States.
Gottschalk was born in New Orleans to a Jewish
businessman from London and a Creole mother. He had six
brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings
by his father's mulatto mistress. His family lived for
a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanad...(+)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18,
1869) was an American composer and pianist, best known
as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano
works. He spent most of his working career outside of
the United States.
Gottschalk was born in New Orleans to a Jewish
businessman from London and a Creole mother. He had six
brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings
by his father's mulatto mistress. His family lived for
a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanade in the
Vieux Carré. Louis later moved in with relatives at
518 Conti Street; his maternal grandmother Bruslé and
his nurse Sally had both been born in Saint-Domingue
(known later as Haiti). He was therefore exposed to a
variety of musical traditions, and played the piano
from an early age. He was soon recognized as a prodigy
by the New Orleans bourgeois establishment, making his
informal public debut in 1840 at the new St. Charles
Hotel.
Only two years later, at the age of 13, Gottschalk left
the United States and sailed to Europe, as he and his
father realized a classical training was required to
fulfil his musical ambitions. The Paris Conservatoire,
however, rejected his application without hearing him,
on the grounds of his nationality; Pierre Zimmermann,
head of the piano faculty, commented that "America is a
country of steam engines". Gottschalk gradually gained
access to the musical establishment through family
friends.
The impact of Gottschalk's music on the later
development of ragtime might seem obvious, yet there is
no proven link from him to the syncopated popular music
he anticipated in works like Bamboula. The music of
Scott Joplin and Jelly Roll Morton show traces of
Gottschalk's melodic shape and rhythmic pulse, and the
New Orleans-born Morton likewise studied under
Lettellier. Nickelodeon pianists disserviced Gottschalk
by loving him too well; pieces like The Dying Poet and
Morte!! turned many a dramatic corner in silent movie
houses, and the public began to identify these themes
as cliché. By the 1940s, Gottschalk was condemned as
hopelessly old-fashioned, and it would take decades of
work by scholars to improve his critical fortunes. In
his best music, Gottschalk was an American original;
masterpieces like Souvenir de Porto Rico, Union, and O
ma charmant, épargnez-moi! transcend time through
their emotional power, technical mastery, audacity,
wit, and charm.
Since Louis Moreau Gottschalk died decades before the
advent of film, he had no way of knowing that his salon
piece The Dying Poet would become a mainstay among
silent-movie pianists who sought to provide a
sentimental accompaniment to the action onscreen. In
the Victorian spirit of its title, this short piece is
based on a tearjerker of a theme that is restated in a
throbbing fashion with repeated notes. One of
Gottschalk's most popular works, The Dying Poet was
often featured by Gottschalk on his own recital
programs. It was written in 1863, shortly before
Gottschalk had to flee the country to avoid the
aftereffects of a scandal that arose from his illicit
affair with a student at the Oakland Female Seminary.
The work attained popularity not only in the U.S. but
also in South America, where the composer lived a
peripatetic existence for the rest of his life.
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