>> James Wintle:
Hi, good evening.
My name is James Wintle.
I'm a Reference Librarian
in the Music Division here
at The Library of Congress,
and with such an
exciting program tonight,
exploring the Spanish tinge
in early American piano music,
I thought you might like
to learn a little bit more
about one of the first
American musicians
to really make an impact
in Europe and also one
of the first Pan-American
celebrities,
Louis Moreau Gottschalk.
The title of my lecture
is Gottschalk's Olde
Souvenir Shoppe.
This refers to a
number of pieces
that he wrote called Souvenirs,
which in French means memories.
The point being that
the memories
of Gottschalk's upbringing
in New Orleans
and subsequent travels
across Europe
and South America informed
not only his own compositions,
but the overall development
of American music
in really unexpected ways.
Gottschalk's mother
and grandmother came
to the United States
via San Doming,
which is now part of Haiti.
Gottschalk's early
life was bicultural
and he recalled early
memories of hearing folksongs
from San Doming sung
by his grandmother
and his family's
house servant, Sally.
As a child in New Orleans he was
also exposed to a wide variety
of music from Africa, Cuba and
South America that was all part
of the same cultural melting pot
that would many years later
produce an entirely new form
of distinctly American
music known as jazz.
Gottschalk's familiarity
with both Latin American
and African-American music
informed his compositions
from the start.
In 1841 when Gottschalk
was only 12 years old
and had already shown
a real talent
at the piano his father
set him asail to Paris
to study both piano
and composition.
After initially being rejected
from the Paris Conservatoire,
apparently due to the fact
that there were simply no
good pianists in America
and so he couldn't possibly be
qualified, he began piano study
with Charles Hulet
[assumed spelling]
and the composition lessons
with Pierre Mouladen [assumed
spelling], who wrote a few books
on music theory and composition
and also was later the teacher
of Camille Sasons
[assumed spelling].
These lessons went quite well
and Gottschalk's prodigious
talents flourished.
Just a few years later in 1845
he presented a very successful
recital in Paris at the Salle
Pleyel, which was attended
by both Frederic Chopin
and Zegas Montalberg
[assumed spelling],
two of the most important
pianist-composers of the time,
among other musical
luminaries of the Paris scene.
Apparently, the only reason
Franz Liszt wasn't there was
because he was on
vacation, away,
but he really wanted
to be there.
Chopin was so impressed
with the young pianist
that he made a point
to congratulate him
after the recital.
As with many events of
this kind opinions vary
on what exactly Chopin
said to Gottschalk.
He shook Gottschalk's hand, this
is a young 16-year-old fellow,
shook his hand and either said,
congratulations, very well done,
or I predict that you will
become the king of pianists,
perhaps something in between,
it depends on whose
source you want to believe.
His sister is the one that said
he said, the kind of pianists,
that's how his sister
reported it.
My sister would say
the same thing, I know.
Undoubtedly, Gottschalk was
becoming even at the tender age
of 16 the toast of Paris and
a very accomplished pianist.
None other than the great
composer, Hector Berlioz, wrote,
quote, Gottschalk is one
of a very small number
who possess all the
different elements
of a consummate pianist, all
the faculties which surround him
with an irresistible prestige
and give him a sovereign power.
He is an accomplished musician,
he knows just how far fancy
may be indulged in expression,
he knows the limits beyond
which any liberties taken
with the rhythm produce
only confusion and disorder,
and upon these limits
he never encroaches.
There is an exquisite
grace in his manner
of phrasing sweet melodies
and throwing off light
touches from the higher keys.
The boldness and brilliance
and originality of his playing
at once dazzles and astonishes
and the infantile naivete
of his smiling caprices,
the terming simplicity
with which he renders
simple things seem to belong
to another individuality
distinct from that
which marks his thundering
energy.
Thus, the success of Masseur
Gottschalk before an audience
of musical cultivation
is immense.
That's what Berlioz had to
say about the situation.
He was never at a loss
for words, Berlioz.
Around this same
time his abilities
as a composer were also
starting to develop.
Gottschalk's early
admiration for the operas
of Meyerbeer informed his
musical style as it did
for many other 19th
Century composers.
Side note here, Meyerbeer is one
of the great unappreciated
influences
in 19th Century music,
his operas don't get
performed a lot anymore
and we generally are not
as familiar with his music
as we should be if
we really want
to understand what was happening
in the 19th Century, just FYI,
but this is not about
Meyerbeer, is it?
In particular his sense of
harmony he got from Meyerbeer,
his use of secondary
dominance, diminished triads
and third related chord
progressions which allowed him
to move nimbly between
the major and minor modes
which added a special emotional
affect to his piano pieces.
The difference between
Gottschalk
and the other composers that had
assimilated Meyerbeer's harmonic
language into their
compositions was
that Gottschalk was
an American and,
more specifically,
from New Orleans.
The international and
multicultural sounds
of the city were in his musical
DNA and he took full advantage
of that fact from his earliest
published compositions.
In 1849 his piano piece,
Bamboula and La Savane,
introduced the syncopated feel
of the Haitian and Cuban music
that Gottschalk had
heard as a child
to the European salon audience.
These two pieces, along with
Le Bananier and Le Manceniller,
which were published a
year later and written
in a similar style, became
known as the Louisiana Quartet,
those four pieces
were the Quartet,
and established the
20-year-old Gottschalk
as a legitimate star among
the pianists-composers
of the Paris scene.
The most distinctive rhythm of
these pieces, which was derived
from the Latin Contradanza,
is probably best known
to American audiences today as
the Habanera [assumed spelling].
Thanks to Georges Bizet, who
wrote Carmen some 20 years
after the pieces we're
discussing, just to put it
in proper context, we probably
all know what a Habanera sounds
like [music] right?
And so it doesn't seem
particularly unusual to hear it
in a piano piece, however,
it was a very savvy decision
for Gottschalk if one imagines
the Paris salon of 1850,
when Chopin's Mazurkas
were relatively new
and Franz Liszt was in the midst
of writing his Anedepilette
Renage [assumed spelling],
the years of the pilgrimage.
We find natural context
for these pieces,
which incorporate the native
folk traditions of the artist,
like Chopin did with the
Mazurka and the Polonaise,
and evoke the memory of
far off lands in the manner
of Liszt and his travels.
But again Gottschalk's
Americanus is what made him
unique, he found a place within
the fashionable music of the day
where he could make a
contribution unlike anyone else.
In an editorial note
to the publication
of these pieces Gottschalk
made this point himself,
although he made it in the third
person, it goes like this --
Chopin, as is well known,
transferred the national trades
of Poland to his
Mazurkas and Polonaises,
and Mr. Gottschalk has
endeavored to reproduce
in his works the
characteristic traits
of the dances of
the West Indies.
Of course, unbeknownst
to Gottschalk his
syncopated rhythms and use
of Latin American melodic
contours would also anticipate
elements of both
ragtime and jazz music.
Of course, he had
no idea about this
because such things
didn't exist at the time,
which is why we hear the
Danza by Gottschalk featured
on this evening's program.
I'd like to play a little
bit of La Bamboula for you
to let you hear what
I'm talking about.
I'm not sure how to unlock
this computer, so my friend,
David Plylar [assumed
spelling], will be coming
in as my lovely assistant.
And when we hear La Bamboula
this is one of the few pieces
by Gottschalk that people now
will tend to hear, La Bamboula
and The Banjo are
the two that tend
to get played every so often.
But in this piece you'll hear
that distinctive Habanera
rhythm [music] but instead
of in the bass, like you'd
expect from hearing Carmen,
you'll hear it in the
upper voice of the piano.
So let's get a little
bit of that.
[ Music ]
All right, so you get the idea
[music] is that [music] sort
of dance that we hear
that is more familiar,
and he's incorporated it
into a style here that's not
particularly Latin American
sounding per se, but he's
incorporated those rhythms
and the syncopation into
a kind of grand piano sort
of standard 19th Century style,
so it's interesting
to hear that.
Gottschalk's success in
Paris led to a series
of international tours
over the next two decades
that would expand his musical
and cultural perspective,
beginning with the wildly
successful series of concerts
in Spain during which he wrote
his first musical, Souvenir,
the Souvenir Don du
Lusie [assumed spelling],
which is the Souvenir of
the Andalusian Mountains,
and many other pieces that
evoke a Spanish style.
Gottschalk then toured
the United States,
followed by a tour of the
Antilles, including Cuba
and Puerto Rico, where he
wrote the Danza that is
on this evening's program,
as well as his Souvenir
de Puerto Rico,
which is a fantastic piece,
I definitely recommend
listening to that.
Then he came back
to the United States
and then a long tour
of South America.
This is over the
course of two decades
where he spent multiple
years in these places.
All of these tours, which
I'm mentioning very quickly,
were in fact quite
prolonged affairs
that were incredibly
strenuous, both mentally
and physically, for Gottschalk.
During a stay on the Island
of Saint Thomas he wrote
in his diary, what charming
souvenirs these four weeks
so rapidly elapsed have left me,
the happiness this peaceful
country life gives me.
Solitude for me is
repose, is the absence
of the thousand distractions of
this unquiet and giddy existence
to which my career of
nomad artist condemns me.
In solitude I find in reveries
and contemplation
fertile sources
of inspiration, end quote.
Gottschalk wrote numerous pieces
titled Souvenirs throughout his
career, invoking the spirit
of the places he had visited,
including Buenos
Aires, Lima and Havana.
The Souvenir de Havan from
1859 is particularly charming
and again utilizes the
familiar Habanera rhythm,
this time in its more
commonplace as a base Ostinato.
In the second section
of the piece we'll
also hear a real taste
of the syncopated style
that would become ragtime
just a few decades later
and it explicitly shows
where this Spanish tinge
that Jellyroll Morton described
as an essential element
in jazz music comes from.
So we hear, especially in the
second section of this piece
which you'll notice, knowing
ragtime, what ragtime sounds
like now you can hear where
those rhythms are put together
in a similar way, the
syncopation particularly,
and in the first part you'll
hear the Habanera again.
[ Music ]
And, of course, he adds in a
little ching-chong, ching-chong,
so you know it's over,
you know when to clap.
But you hear in that piece a lot
of long stretches of modulations
where he's visiting various
keys trying to get around to
where he's going, and that's
where the Meyerbeer influence
comes in, but the Spanish tinge
in that piece along with those
syncopated rhythms is what sort
of pre-forecasts this
ragtime style in a kind
of really interesting way.
So during his travels
Gottschalk often stayed
in one place long enough not
only to compose new music
and perform multiple
concerts, but also to take
on composition students.
During his travels in
Cuba, for instance,
one of those students
was Ignacio Cervantes,
who adapted the Cuban
Contradanza for piano
in a very different
way than Gottschalk,
and you'll hear a bit of
that later this evening.
So there are some pieces by
Cervantes on the program tonight
and you can hear in that
a very different approach
from what you've
heard from Gottschalk
in adapting this
Cuban-Haitian style into sort
of concert music, so
that'll be interesting.
I'm not going to say
any more about it,
it'll be a nice surprise.
So, as I mentioned
earlier, Gottschalk was one
of the first Pan-American
celebrities due
to his extensive tours in the
Caribbean and South America.
Unlike many musicians
of his day,
Gottschalk was very politically
minded and was never hesitant
to express his opinions.
He deeply believed in the
tenets of the American Republic,
he saw the Constitution
as a foundational document
that should change
with the times,
especially during the Civil War,
during which his staunchly
pro-Union views were challenged
by his slave-owning
contemporaries who believed
that owning slaves was
their Constitutional right.
He countered this view by saying
that society should not have
to try to fit into the
mold of the Constitution
as it was originally
written any more
than a grown man
should have to fit
into the clothes of his youth.
His antislavery
and pro-Republican views were
carried with him on his tours
of South America
and the Caribbean
where he regularly
donated large sums of money
to bolster public education
in the areas that he visited
and believed wholeheartedly
that territories
that were gaining their
independence from Spain
and other European nations
should adopt a government
similar to that in
the United States.
His opposition to European
colonialism was, of course,
very much in line with
the Monroe Doctrine,
which had been introduced
in the 1820s.
During his concerts and public
appearances he often made a
point of combining local
folksongs with patriotic tunes
from the United States
into one piece to promote
through his music the political
unity that he hoped for.
His Souvenirs, which
evoked the character
of the countries he had
visited, was another way
that Gottschalk paid musical
tribute to the local audiences
that he believed could flourish
without the influence
of colonial forces.
Despite his successes in Europe
and Latin America Gottschalk
faced hard opposition
in his native country,
particularly in the person
of John Sullivan Dwight, who was
the Editor of Dwight's Journal
of Music and one of the most
influential American music
critics of the 19th Century.
Dwight, along with many
of his contemporaries
in the musical establishment,
had a very narrow view
of what constituted
quality music.
In short, Dwight held that
the symphonies and sonatas
of Beethoven should be
held up as ideal examples
of musical quality and other
composers that dared to stray
from that path by incorporating
folk music or popular tunes
into their compositions
were merely wasting the time
of the audience.
I don't suppose Dwight
was familiar
with Beethoven's settings of
Irish and Scottish folksongs
or perhaps Wellington's Victory
which quotes God Save the Queen
and all kinds of other
things in it, so he just sort
of ignored those pieces
that Beethoven had not really
written those, of course.
But, be that as it may,
Dwight was none to pleased
with the music of Louis
Moreau Gottschalk,
writing in his journal
on December 29th,
1855 after a recital that the
audience apparently enjoyed very
much, quote, I have no doubt
but Gottschalk would satisfy the
musician as well as the public
if he would include something
more classic in his programs.
He may depend upon
it, the fame acquired
by merely tickling
the ear for an hour
or so is not the most lasting.
He is really a most
brilliant and capable pianist
and a true artist also,
his touch is nervous
and his execution very
perfect and clear.
His compositions are
pretty, pleasing also,
and often quite characteristic,
but they seem to lack intention.
There is nothing in them of
farther reach than the tympanum
of the ear, end quote.
Tympanum of the ear is
the outer part of the ear,
so it doesn't really
get into the brain,
you know, according to Dwight.
Dwight's opinions
about the supremacy
of Germanic classical
music was indicative
of the established American
classical music scene
of the time, which included
relatively new organizations
like the New York Philharmonic,
which hired primarily
German musicians
to play Germanic music.
This widely held prejudice
toward the great composers
of the past influenced
the direction
of American performing
ensembles and music education
in this country well
into the 20th Century.
The cult of the composer
as genius was and still is
in many circles a very
powerful idea to overcome.
Gottschalk did not fit this mold
and perhaps unsurprisingly is
still today not a composer whose
music is regularly heard
in American concert halls,
despite his important
place in music history.
When it came to Dwight's
criticisms, however,
Gottschalk had a good
laugh at his expense
when he announced a concert of
his own compositions in Boston.
Knowing Dwight would be in
attendance he substituted one
of his own pieces with
a Beethoven bagatelle
without informing the audience.
Dwight took the bait, of course,
and wrote a scathing review
in which he lamented the
fact that none of the pieces
on the recital could
stand beside the works
of the great masters.
Gottschalk did not respond
to the criticism openly,
but one imagines him slyly
smiling while he read it.
The seemingly endless debate,
in fact, still rages today,
is the modern recital hall a
place for sublime transcendence,
a place for pure entertainment
or a combination of the two?
And if it is a combination
of those two things how do those
activities comfortably coexist?
This is a question that
is constantly at the heart
of programming decisions
made by both classical
and jazz concert presenters
every day and one that we
as audience members
should be cognizant of.
We see the legacy of Louis
Moreau Gottschalk both
in these philosophical debates
and as a model for the life
of the modern traveling
virtuoso who has to deal
with the seemingly
incongruous task
of entertaining an audience
while maintaining one's own
artistic vision.
I believe Gottschalk's ability
to successfully negotiate
these two important aspects
of musical life, both
on the printed page
and in the concert hall,
as well as his unique place
in the pre-history of jazz
music places him among the most
intriguing figures in American
music and is more than enough
to warrant further study
and more frequent
performances of his work.
Thank you very much.
[ Applause ]
Does anybody have any
questions about Gottschalk
or about other musical matters
that I might help you with?
Yes?
>> Wait for the mike.
>> I guess before the
year of the telephone
and the telegraph
how did Gottschalk
and given the very slow mail
system between countries
at that time how did he ever
arrange these long tours?
>> James Wintle: You know,
that's a very good question,
and he -- it was done by mail
and he was invited
various places
and had a very large network of
friends and people that he knew,
but it was done very
slowly and surely
and that's another reason
why when he would go
to South America, for instance,
he would stay there for three
or four years and go from place
to place and stay one place
for a little while, get
the next gig and go on.
And these things were very
slow moving and very extensive,
so that's why in
the thing I read
from his diary he was saying
that he was just completely
exhausted from this life
of the nomad artist because
he would go to these places
on a ship obviously and
then have to stay there
for a very extended period of
time to sort of make the rounds.
So, yes, that was
pretty much it.
Other questions?
Yes, absolutely, go ahead?
>> What language or languages
did he grow up speaking?
>> James Wintle: Well, he grew
up speaking French and he grew
up speaking English,
and a lot of people said
that his French was better than
his English, even though he grew
up in New Orleans, but those
were his primary languages.
And if you look at his
published music most
of the time the titles are in
French, and he related very much
to French culture and the
culture of Paris that he was
in when he was a teenager.
So, yes, mainly French
and English,
he may have spoken other
languages as well, I'm not sure
about that, but I know that
his two main ones were English
and French.
>> Did he know Georges Bizet?
>> No, I don't think so,
Bizet was born in 1830s
when Gottschalk was
already doing his thing,
and I couldn't imagine
they actually ever met.
>> When was Gottschalk born?
>> James Wintle: Gottschalk
was born in 29, yes,
but Bizet was a bit, took a bit
longer to get where he was going
and wasn't writing
his music until later.
But I would imagine that
the whole sort of trendiness
of using Spanish music
and compositions,
which was something that was
really happening in Europe a lot
in the 19th Century,
to a certain extent Gottschalk
was innovating this stuff
but also he had one foot in
sort of the trends of the day,
so it wasn't like he just was
doing this out of nowhere.
Like I was talking
about with Chopin,
I mean he had very clear
models for what he was doing,
but he was just doing
it in his own way.
And there isn't really a
relationship between him
and Bizet in any
sort of real way.
I used that as an example simply
because it was the
most familiar Habanera
that people probably
knew, it wasn't to imply
that there was any sort
of real connection.
>> Any sense of improvisation
versus the written composition?
>> James Wintle:
Well, I think you hear
in the written composition a
sense of his improvisation,
I think it's very much like the
music of Johann Sebastian Bach
where he writes down, he has a
structure that is very familiar,
but then essentially is writing
out all of his ornamentation
and that's why we as 20th
Century listeners latched
onto the, and 19th
Century listeners too,
latched onto the music
of Johann Sebastian Bach
and not say Telemann,
for instance,
because Telemann
writes the music
and then lets you ornament
it and improvise on it,
Bach writes everything out and
you do it exactly as it's done
with a few added things.
But I think Gottschalk
is very much in that mold
in that you're hearing
what he played like,
his piano music is very
idiomatic for the instrument
and you're hearing the kinds of
things that he would have done
in an improvisation
in the written page,
so I think that is very
much there to hear.
I don't get a sense that he --
he would certainly improvise
in his concerts, but I feel like
it was very much in the style
of what he wrote down.
Yes?
>> Have you or others compiled
any records about the popularity
of Gottschalk's music,
according to the playlist
that all orchestras and so
forth keep over the decades
to indicate just the quality,
were people orchestrating
his pieces?
I don't know to what extent
he could turn his piano pieces
into orchestral presentations
as well?
>> James Wintle: Yes, he was --
well, to answer your question
right up front, I have not,
I'm not aware of that kind
of detailed study being done.
I do know that when he was in
South America during the end
of his life he did write
a couple of symphonies
and also not really a concerto,
but a piano and orchestra piece
to be played by a
rather large orchestra.
And he had gotten together so
many people for this concert
that there were some
hundreds of people on stage,
according to reports, and had
written these larger works
primarily because of I think
what you're hinting at,
which is you get into the,
you get a larger audience
in the orchestral world than one
would as a simply sole pianist
and having the works performed
by others, that sort of thing.
But, no, I don't think that
those orchestral pieces
that he wrote, I've never heard
of them being performed other
than when he conducted
them when he wrote them.
They probably have
at some point,
but I'm just not aware of it.
And as far as orchestrations
of his piano music
I don't know of any.
David, you know of any?
No. And David is kind of
a transcription expert.
But, no, I'm not aware of that
and that probably has a lot
to do with why we don't hear
his music quite so often
because it really has
to be a piano recital.
He did write some songs
that are more sort
of sentimental parlor
song type things.
He wrote one called The Last
Hope, which in its day was very,
very popular and was
performed quite a lot
and sold quite a few
copies of sheet music,
but that's the way you
really see his popularity is
through sheet music sales
more so than performances.
And pieces like La Bamboula
were breaking records all
over the place in that
regard because he was admired
as a pianist and people wanted
to sort of copy his style.
But as far as actual public
performances I wouldn't think
there'd be very many at all.
Yes, so other things, was there
another question over here?
Yes?
>> In terms of nations or
subcultures and in terms
of appreciation of Gottschalk
today is there any particular
area or country where the
interest of him stands out?
>> James Wintle: Not that I'm
aware of, I don't have my finger
on the pulse of all of that, but
I've not read of any evidence
that there is sort of a real
heavy Gottschalk admiration
society in Puerto Rico
or something like that.
I think that his, well,
definitely his music was
more popular in Europe
because of the novelty
of it than it was
in the United States even at
the time, but the problem comes
with this idea of
popular sounding music,
which is really what he
wrote, it's very entertaining
and there are lots
of modulations
and interesting harmonic
movement and all that sort
of thing, but he's
not writing sonatas.
And so for a pianist to
get up in the context
of a classical music concert
and play Gottschalk it's one
of those things that sort of
goes on the end of the program,
if you know what I mean,
and with jazz pianists
they don't tend
to do precomposed music that
often so it takes someone
like Aaron Deale [assumed
spelling] who is really
in both worlds to a certain
extent, mentally in both worlds,
to be able to find a context
in which this music
really makes sense.
And so that's one of the
reasons I'm really interested
in what's going to
happen in a few minutes
because it really is
something unusual, so, yes.
Other questions?
Gottschalkian trivia perhaps?
Everybody is good?
All right, enjoy the concert.
Thank you so much for
coming, I appreciate it.
[applause]