Louis Moreau Gottschalk

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Louis Moreau Gottschalk Life

It was this bombastic music that left the deepest impression on Gottschalk, later permeating his works and eventually spurring him on to international fame.

The musical climate of New Orleans in the 1830s is revealed in the childhood of Gottschalk.

Creoles made up about 50 percent of the city at that time, with the majority of the population residing in what was called Old New Orleans, east of Canal.

Gottschalk, too, was of Creole descent and was raised primarily by his grandmother and his African-American nurse, both natives of the island of Saint-Dominique.

Certainly Creole melodies were a natural part of the Gottschalk household.

Young Gottschalk would stand on the third floor gallery and listen to the sounds of the street floating on the sultry city breeze.

Music filled the streets of New Orleans then, as it still does today, and flowed among the houses which remained open to the street most of the year.

One particularly popular spot for song and dance was Congo Square; well-known to have been the location of Sunday afternoon public dances in the early nineteenth century.

Gottschalk was a prodigy at the piano.

- MIDI FILE - "Caprice de concert" (3'44'')

As a young boy he easily picked up tunes of the many popular French operas premiering in New Orleans and created variations on the well-known arias and themes.

Even before his first public performing debut, Gottschalk was in demand as a recitalist in the swanky salons of wealthy New Orleanians.

- MIDI FILE - Pasquinade (3'29'')

Upon the urging of Felix Miolan, concertmaster of the Theatre d'Orleans, Gottschalk made a less than formal performance debut at the new St. Charles Hotel in 1840.

He was identified on the program as "young X, a Creole", but was an instant hit with the audience, performing a series of variations on a popular spicy Latin dance tune.

- MIDI FILE - "Dance cubane" (2'08'')

He quickly learned all that local musicians had to teach and, at the age of 13, left to study piano and composition in Paris.

His virtuosic playing and Creole-inspired compositions gained him immediate fame throughout Europe, with a wide-variety of audiences clamoring to see this handsome, young virtuoso with the splendidly outlandish origins.

- MIDI FILE -   Etude de concert (4'30'')

In 1853, Gottschalk returned to the United States.

He never married, preferring instead to travel the United States and Europe and to trace his Creole history back to the Caribbean region as well as Cuba and South America.

Some controversy surrounds the actual cause of his death in 1869, but this extensive touring was certainly a factor.

Gottschalk was always hailed as an American celebrity and he always considered New Orleans his home.