One-measure AMusQS

GOTTSCHALK, LOUIS M. (1829-1869). American composer and piano virtuoso. AMusQS. (“L. Gottschalk”). 1p. 8vo. Poughkeepsie, October 20, 1863. A single measure of notes with chromatics from an unidentified melody penned on an album page. A piano prodigy, Gottschalk’s early influences included Creole music, African rhythms of Congo Square and French operas all fashionable in the New Orleans of his day. Instantly popular after his 1840 debut, he studied in Paris at age 13 where his many admirers included the great Chopin. “Gottschalk made his formal début as a professional pianist in the Salle Pleyel on 17 April 1849, in a recital featuring a group of his ‘Creole’ compositions, then the rage of Paris. The critics were captivated by his virtuosity and compared his approach to Chopin; as a composer, he was hailed as the first eloquent and authentic musical spokesman of the New World,” (The New Grove Dictionary). Although he toured widely throughout Europe and the Americas, he spent the five years between 1857 and 1862 in the Caribbean and South America barely performing. Financial pressures drove him to sign on for a U.S. tour in 1862 and it was during this period that our quotation was written. “In four and a half months Gottschalk traveled 15,000 miles by rail and gave 85 recitals, a brutal pace which he maintained for more than three years,” (ibid.). His orchestral and piano works include La Nuit des Tropiques, Montevideo, The Dying Poet, The Banjo, and The Last Hope. Gottschalk’s “sensitivity to esoterica enabled him to forecast, with uncanny prescience, American musical developments which did not actually take place until the end of the 19^th century… Much of Gottschalk’s music, both published and unpublished, is lost although manuscripts have been found since the 1930s,” (ibid.). In fine condition and uncommon.

Item# 13774

Price: $1,800

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