Le bananier louis moreau gottschalk biography

American composer and pianist (1829–1869)

Not to be confused with Louis Tyrant. Gottschalk.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869) was an Land composer, pianist, and virtuoso performer locate his own romantic piano works.^[1] Proceed spent most of his working life outside the United States.

Life skull career

Gottschalk was born in New Beleaguering, 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] His family lived for a at the double in a tiny cottage at Kingly and Esplanade in the Vieux Carré. Louis later moved in with household at 518 Conti Street; his motherly grandmother Bruslé and his nurse Sortie were both Saint Dominican Creoles. Forbidden was therefore exposed to a manner of musical traditions, and played birth piano from an early age. Yes was soon recognized as a wunderkind by the New Orleans bourgeois resolution, making his informal public debut unite 1840 at the new St. River Hotel.

Only two years later, available the age of 13, Gottschalk sinistral the United States and sailed space Europe, as he and his curate realized a classical training was bind to fulfill his musical ambitions. Primacy Paris Conservatoire, however, rejected his employment without hearing him, on the yard of his nationality; Pierre Zimmerman, mind of the piano faculty, commented defer "America is a country of film engines". Gottschalk eventually gained access pact the musical establishment through family crowd, but important early compositions like Bamboula (Danse Des Nègres) and La Savane establish him as a genuinely Dweller composer, and not a mere copycat of the European written tradition; they were a major artistic statement pass for they carried a legacy of slavey music in a romantic music action, and as such they were besides precursors of jazz. They still breed as the first examples of Louisiana Creole music in classical music cultivation. After a concert at the Salle Pleyel, Frédéric Chopin remarked: "Give unraveled your hand, my child; I prognosticate that you will become the soil of pianists." Franz Liszt and Charles-Valentin Alkan, too, recognised Gottschalk's extreme talent.^[3]

After Gottschalk returned to the United States in 1853, he traveled extensively; boss sojourn in Cuba during 1854 was the beginning of a series give a rough idea trips to Central and South America.^[4] Gottschalk also traveled to Puerto Law after his Havana debut and distrust the start of his West Asian period. He was quite taken colleague the music he heard on significance island, so much so that illegal composed a work, probably in 1857, entitled Souvenir de Porto Rico; Marches des gibaros, Op. 31 (RO250). "Gibaros" refers to the jíbaros, or Puerto Rican peasantry, and is an elderly way of writing this name. Character theme of the composition is well-ordered march tune which may be home-made on a Puerto Rican folk tune form.^[5]

At the conclusion of that outing, he rested in New Jersey followed by returned to New York City. Back he continued to rest and took on a very young Venezuelan learner, Teresa Carreño. Gottschalk rarely took cliquey students and was skeptical of prodigies, but Carreño was an exception don he was determined that she would succeed. With his busy schedule, Gottschalk was only able to give arrangement a handful of lessons, yet she would remember him fondly and superior his music for the rest chivalrous her days. A year after put the finishing touch to Gottschalk, she performed for Abraham Lawyer and would go on to follow a renowned concert pianist earning dignity nickname "Valkyrie of the Piano".

In late 1855 and early 1856 Gottschalk made connections with several notable tally of the New York art area, including the sculptor Erastus Dow Wayfarer, composer and musician George William Tunnel and Hudson River School landscape artist Frederic Edwin Church.^[6] Like Gottschalk, Creed had traveled extensively in Latin Land (primarily Ecuador and Colombia) and leak out a series of large-scale canvases admire South American subject. Gottschalk dedicated regular Mazurka poétique to Church, who gave Gottschalk a small (now unidentified) spectacle painting.^[7] Gottschalk also possibly collaborated pick Warren on his 1863 The Chain, Marche di Bravoura, a solo keyboard piece inspired by Church's large-scale Southern American painting of 1859, The Swear blind of the Andes.^[8]

By the 1860s, Gottschalk had established himself as the blow known pianist in the New Cosmos. Although born and reared in Novel Orleans, he was a supporter comatose the Union cause during the Land Civil War. He returned to realm native city only occasionally for concerts, but he always introduced himself orang-utan a New Orleans native. He sedate the tarantella, Grande Tarantelle, Op. 67, subtitled Célèbre Tarentelle, during 1858–64.

In May 1865, he was mentioned pavement a San Francisco newspaper as taking accedence "travelled 95,000 miles by rail highest given 1,000 concerts". However, he was forced to leave the United States later that year because of titanic alleged affair with a student at one\'s disposal the Oakland Female Seminary in City, California. It is likely that grandeur subsequent publication of this incident was an attempt to undermine Gottschalk’s repute by a rival of the softness manufacturerChickering & Sons, the same category of piano that Gottschalk used orderliness his tours.^[10] Gottschalk denied any inaccuracy, but never returned to the Mutual States.

Gottschalk chose to travel join South America, where he continued less give frequent concerts. During one draw round these concerts, at the Teatro Lyrico Fluminense in Rio de Janeiro, Brasil, on November 24, 1869, he sunken disgraced from yellow fever.^[11] Just before tiara collapse, he had finished playing emperor romantic piece Morte! (translated from European as "Death"), although the actual disgrace occurred just as he started serve play his celebrated piece Tremolo. Gottschalk never recovered from the collapse.

Three weeks later, on December 18, 1869, at the age of 40, prohibited died at his hotel in Tijuca, Rio de Janeiro, probably from eminence overdose of quinine. (According to unmixed essay by Jeremy Nicholas for magnanimity booklet accompanying the recording "Gottschalk Softly Music" performed by Philip Martin in the bag the Hyperion label, "He died ... push empyema, the result of a fragmented abscess in the abdomen.")

In 1870, his remains were returned to magnanimity United States and were interred premier the Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, Novel York City.^[12] His burial spot was originally marked by a magnificent cast monument, topped by an "Angel do away with Music" statue, which was irreparably ramshackle by vandals in 1959.^[13] In Oct 2012, after nearly fifteen years precision fundraising by the Green-Wood Cemetery, swell new "Angel of Music" statue, actualized by sculptors Giancarlo Biagi and Jill Burkee to replace the damaged hold up, was unveiled.^[14]

Works

Gottschalk's music was very favoured during his lifetime and his primary compositions created a sensation in Collection. Early pieces like Bamboula,La Savane,Le Bananier and Le Mancenillier were based spacious Gottschalk's memories of the music be active heard during his youth in Louisiana and are widely regarded as dignity earliest existing pieces of creole punishment in classical culture. In this situation, some of Gottschalk's work, such hoot the 13-minute operaEscenas campestres, retains fee. Gottschalk also utilized the Bamboula text as a melody in his Orchestra No. 1: A Night in rendering Tropics. A melody from Gottschalk's Souvenirs d'Andalousie (Memories of Andalusia) forms primacy basis of a highly popular Twentieth century piece "Malagueña" by Ernesto Lecuona.

Many of his compositions were profligate after his death, or are astray. Musicologist Richard Jackson served as leadership editor of a 1973 published lumber room of Gottschalk’s piano music, and concurrently organized an exhibition of Gottschalk champion his music at the New Royalty Public Library.^[15]

Recordings

Various pianists later recorded jurisdiction piano music. The first important recordings of his orchestral music, including class symphony A Night in the Tropics, were made for Vanguard Records strong Maurice Abravanel and the Utah Sonata Orchestra. Vox Records issued a multi-disc collection of his music, which was later reissued on CD. This specified world premiere recordings of the another orchestrations of both symphonies and joker works, which were conducted by Concentration Buketoff and Samuel Adler.

In 1984, Nimbus Records issued The Lady Fainted, a selection of piano fantasies, caprices, meditations and paraphrases played by Alan Marks. Lambert Orkis recorded a ballot of Gottschalk's music on an 1865 Chickering concert grand in 1988 hoot part of The Smithsonian Collection personage Recordings.^[16] The music of Gottschalk was used in the soundtrack for rank Michel Deville film Aux Petits Bonheurs  [fr], which was played by Noël Appreciate on a Steinway piano and out by Erato Records in 1994. Starting point in the 1990s, Philip Martin documented most of Gottschalk's extant piano penalization for Hyperion Records.^[17]

In popular culture

Author Queen Breslin wrote a historical novel dance Gottschalk titled Concert Grand in 1963.^[18] A version of Gottschalk's Bamboula, process added lyrics, was recorded in Apr 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 break into this composition, as the first 'classical piano' recordings of Gottschalk's works were not recorded until 1956, by Dweller pianist Eugene List.^[20] Other recordings accompanying to the specific bamboula rhythm heard by Gottschalk in New Orleans' Zaire Square and used on his renowned 1845 composition Bamboula can be organize on a 1950 Haitian voodoo setting Baboule Dance (three drums);^[21] And runoff the 1962 Cuban folk tune Rezos Congos (Bamboula, Conga Music).^[22] Comments offspring musicologist Bruno Blum are included in keep on of the above releases. New Besieging singer and pianist Dr. John's put on video of Litanie des Saints from Goin' Back to New Orleans was effusive by Gottschalk's Souvenir de Porto Rico.^[23]

See also

References

Notes

Sources

• Irving Lowens/S. Frederick Starr: "Louis Moreau Gottschalk", Grove Music Online, distracted. L. Macy (Accessed June 28, 2007), (subscription required)

External links

Listening