Louis Moreau Gottschalk Essay

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Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Pianist-virtuoso and composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) was born in New Orleans and grew up in a neighborhood where Creole music was commonly played. He was heavily influenced by African -- Caribbean music throughout the rest of his life (Gelfert, 2001). Gottschalk was exposed to these musical influences coming from outside his house as well as from his grandmother and nurse who were both natives of Saint -- Dominigue, French colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and later known as Haiti (Starr, 1995). Gottschalk had six sisters and brothers, five of them were half -- siblings born to his father's mulatto mistress (Gelfert, 2001; Starr, 1995). As a young child Gottschalk displayed a talent for playing the piano and his parents hired a private tutor to teach them. You also started learning the violin at the age of six and gave his first public piano performance at the age of eight at the St. Charles Hotel in order to help develop a struggling pianist in the New Orleans area (Starr, 1995). His first performance was quite a success and he was recognized as a piano virtuoso (Gelfert, 2001; Starr, 1995). Given that America was not yet a haven for classic pianists or classic musicians the young Gottschalk along with his parents decided that he should receive more formal classical music training in order to realize his ambitions (Loggins, 1958).

Gottschalk moved to Europe in 1842 when he was 13 years old in order to study classical music (Starr, 1995).

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After being rejected from the conservatorie in Paris he studied privately with Karl Halle, Camille-Marie Stamaty and Pierre Malenden (Gelfert, 2001). It was Malenden who taught Gottschalk the piano (Gelfert, 2001). Gottschalk began his formal music career as a teenager in private salons in Paris. His reputation steadily grew and he soon began playing in larger venues. Eventually he was hailed as one of the best pianists of his time and even Frederick Chopin predicted that he would come one of the greatest pianists of the time (Starr, 1995).

In spite of this success in Europe Gottschalk was not impressed with the lifestyle of European musical artists. During this period Europe was particularly obsessed with classical music and on many of the composers of this era developed a sort of cult -- like status. Gottschalk was especially skeptical of this cult -- like status of many musical "geniuses" and was quite critical of their idiosyncratic behaviors and habits. For example he was quite critical of France Liszt in the viewed as an egomaniac (Gottschalk, 2006) and other prominent European musicians, many of whom he felt had little talent but reveled in their ability to appear as musical prodigies by adopting a certain look such as long hair, certain attitudes, etc. (Gelfert, 2001). In addition, some sources believe that Gottschalk was slightly biased against Northern European companies like Germany during his years in….....

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