Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 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. He was the eldest son of a Jewish-English New
Orleans real estate speculator and his French-descended
bride. Gottschalk may have heard the drums at Place
Congo in New Orleans, but his exposure to Creole melody
likely came through his own household; his mother had
grown up in Haiti and fl...(+)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 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. He was the eldest son of a Jewish-English New
Orleans real estate speculator and his French-descended
bride. Gottschalk may have heard the drums at Place
Congo in New Orleans, but his exposure to Creole melody
likely came through his own household; his mother had
grown up in Haiti and fled to Louisiana after that
island's slave uprising. Piano study was undertaken
with Narcisse Lettellier, and at age 11, Gottschalk was
sent to Paris. Denied entrance to the Conservatoire, he
continued with Charles Hallé and Camille Stamaty,
adding composition with Pierre Maleden. His Paris debut
at the Salle Pleyel in 1845 earned praise from Chopin.
By the end of the 1840s, Gottschalk's first works, such
as Bamboula, appeared. These syncopated pieces based on
popular Creole melodies rapidly gained popularity
worldwide. Gottschalk left Paris in 1852 to join his
father in New York, only to encounter stiff competition
from touring foreign artists. With his father's death
in late 1853, Gottschalk inherited support of his
mother and six siblings. In 1855, he signed a contract
with publisher William Hall to issue several pieces,
including The Banjo and The Last Hope. The Last Hope is
a sad and sweetly melancholy piece, and it proved
hugely popular. Gottschalk found himself obliged to
repeat it at every concert, and wrote "even my paternal
love for The Last Hope has succumbed under the terrible
necessity of meeting it at every step." With an
appearance at Dodsworth Hall in December 1855,
Gottschalk finally found his audience. For the first
time he was solvent, and at his mother's death in 1857
Gottschalk was released from his familial obligations.
He embarked on a tour of the Caribbean and didn't
return for five years. When this ended, America was in
the midst of Civil War. Gottschalk supported the north,
touring Union states until 1864. Gottschalk wearied of
the horrors surrounding him, becoming an avid proponent
of education, playing benefit concerts for public
schools and libraries. During a tour to California in
1865, Gottschalk entered into an involvement with a
young woman attending a seminary school in Oakland, and
the press excoriated him. He escaped on a steamer bound
for Panama City. Instead of returning to New York, he
pressed on to Peru, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina,
staying one step ahead of revolutions, rioting, and
cholera epidemics, but he began to break down under the
strain. Gottschalk contracted malaria in Brazil in
August 1869; still recovering, he was hit in the
abdomen by a sandbag thrown by a student in São Paolo.
In a concert at Rio de Janeiro on November 25,
Gottschalk collapsed at the keyboard. He had
appendicitis, which led to peritonitis. On December 18,
1869, Gottschalk died at the age of 40.
His works were influenced by his far-flung travels, as
well as his globetrotting imagination. Fancying himself
as a virtuosic interpreter of rustic folk traditions
after the manner of Chopin and his mazurkas, Gottschalk
was particularly inspired by the musical traditions of
the Caribbean, and a number of his best-known piano
works draw on the song and dance traditions of the
French Antilles, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and surrounding
areas. Souvenirs de la Havane (Souvenirs From Havana,
Op. 39), is one of a handful of pieces Gottschalk
composed in the 1850s after the manner of the Caribbean
contradanza, and is a fine example of Gottschalk's
effort to balance crowd-pleasing pianistic flourish
with a desire to convey, through careful articulation
and texture, the essence of the musical culture from
which he borrows. Gottschalk composed Souvenirs de la
Havane (or, in some editions, "Recuerdos de la Habana"
or "Caprice de concert") in 1859, at the beginning of
an infamously indulgent three-year tour cum extended
vacation in the West Indies. (Other pieces from the
period include the popular four-hand work Ojos
Criollos, Op. 37, and the lively Réponds-moi.) The
piece is underscored nearly throughout by the
distinctive habanera rhythm, beginning simply
underneath a dark and rather Spartan melody but
gradually infiltrating the entire texture. Gottschalk's
syncopated rhythms, by themselves quite adventurous
considering the time period in question, are set off
even further by elaborate polyrhythms between the
steady pulse of the habanera in the bass and occasional
fluid triplet elaborations in the right hand. The
rhythmic vibrancy of the piece's middle section couples
with a shift to major mode, while the composer's
extrovert peforming personality adds elements of
pianistic flourish, as in the tricky extended passage
for right hand alone, or the lightning-fast leaps
across the keyboard near the end (marked Volante).
Here, Gottschalk derives the piece's energy from the
contradanza, even as the pianist in him presents the
form in elaborate virtuosic dressing.
Source: AllMusic
(https://www.allmusic.com/artist/louis-moreau-g
ottschalk-mn0001767715/biography).
Although originally composed for Piano, I created this
interpretation of "Souvenir de la Havane: Grande
Caprice de Concert" (Opus 39) for Oboe & Strings (2
Violins, Viola, Cello & Bass).
SHEET MUSIC