'… a combination of Fritz Kreisler;
the great artist tossing tossing out delicious compositional bonbons, Kurt
Weill, the profound composer speaking naturally in the popular style, and
Virgil Fox, the theatrical virtuoso performer sweeping back his cape to
take a bow …' - Richard Jackson
'… all the grace of Chopin with
more decided character …' Adolph Adam
'The devil take the poets who dare to
sing of the pleasures of
an artist's life' - himself
'New Jersey is the poorest place to
give concerts in the world; except Central Africa'
- himself
'… [the self-labeled"old Chopinist"
who] fraternized with kings,
queens and assorted royalty, moved in the best circles,
and had a most satisfactory number of love affairs …'
- Harold C Schonberg
LOUIS MOREAU
GOTTSCHALK
(pronounciation: 'close the lips, advance
the tongue, appear a little like whistling, and you will have the key' -
La France musicale)
Ates Orga
Lord of the Chickering, lode-star of the Civil War generation. A nomadic
wanderer, living proof to an incredulous Europe that America wasn't just
a 'country of railroads.' A romantically langourous figure as confident
of his effect on women as certain of his weakness for them. In 'Gottschalk
of Louisiana,' the introduction to his 1973 Dover edition of the piano music
in facsimilie reprint, Richard Jackson of the New York Public Library assembled
a colourful montage of eye-witness impressions:
'He is very young looking, does not
seem to be over twenty-two years of age, handsome, and, to crown the whole,
is so easy and unaffected in his manner that a person could not fail to
be pleased with him as a man'
a diary entry from a contemporary at his
first New York concerts, February 1853
'A small, pale, delicate looking young
man - almost a boy in form and appearance - of chestnut hair, large dreamy
blue eyes, a pleasant well shaped countenance and modest demeanour, stood
bowing before this audience that received him in the heartiest and most
encouraging manner... To brilliancy and vigour ... he unites a delicacy,
a finish, an ease and above all a poetical grace and feeling than are peculiarly
his own'
New Orleans Daily Picayune, April
7th 1853
'... after a few moments the fire would
kindle and he would play with all the brilliancy which was so peculiarly
his own. He was possessed of a ringing, scintillating touch, which, joined
to a poetic charm of expression, seemed to sway the emotions of his audience
with almost hypnotic power. His eyes were the striking feature of his face,
large and dark with peculiarly drooping lids, which always appeared half-closed
as he played ... It was the fashion at that time always to wear white gloves
with evening dress, and his manner of taking them off, after seating himself
at the piano, was often a very amusing episode. His deliberation, his perfect
indifference to the waiting audience was thoroughly manifest, as he slowly
drew them off one finger at a time, bowing and smiling meanwhile to the
familiar faces in the front rows. Finally disposing of them, he would manipulate
his hands until they were quite limber, then preludize until his mood prompted
him to begin
[the Romantic fashion - since revived by Earl Wild]'
Richard Hoffman, Some Musical Recollections
of Fifty Years, New York 1910
Gottschalk reigned among the glory-showmen of the Barnum age. With his
personally commissioned grands - his 'mastadons' as he called them, all
of ten feet long boasting tails three feet wide - he blazed the West ahead
of Thalberg and Anton Rubinstein. Winning hearts, future Liberace-style,
with 'sad titles, vox angelica melodies, pathetic barbershop harmony,
thrilly tremolos, sweepy harp effects, and lots of runs on cue' (Robert
Offergeld), he was America's very own Liszt, her 'first matinée idol.'
Continue >>
Copyright © 7 January 2000, Ates Orga, Suffolk, UK
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