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It's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) was the first American musician to gain widespread recognition in Europe. He was known mainly as a virtuoso pianist, but was also a prolific composer who drew on his unusual background for inspiration. Gottschalk was born in New Orleans, the son of a British Jewish father and a Haitian Creole mother. He was exposed to a wide variety of musical traditions throughout his life, first at home and in the streets of his native city, and later in his travels through Latin America and the Caribbean. At thirteen, already a piano prodigy, Gottschalk went to Paris to continue his musical studies. He was rejected by the Paris Conservatoire without an audition, purely on the basis of his nationality, with the head of the piano faculty remarking that "America is a country of steam engines, not of musicians." Eventually gaining access to the Paris musical establishment through the help of family friends, Gottschalk was "discovered" when he performed Chopin's first piano concerto before a small audience that included Chopin himself. Chopin took him on as a student and predicted that he would become "the king of pianists." Around the same time, Gottschalk began to compose his own music for piano, drawing on the music of New Orleans for inspiration. Regarded as new and exotic in Europe, his earliest compositions created a massive sensation when they were published. These included what would become his signature piece, "Bamboula," a fantasy on two Louisiana Creole melodies.
Gottschalk returned to America in 1853, settling in New York, and toured extensively in the United States and Latin America. By 1860 he was the most famous pianist in the New World; a San Francisco newspaper described him as having traveled 95,000 miles by rail and given over 1,000 concerts in the Americas. In 1865, after a scandalous affair, he left the United States and moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he continued to tour in South America. It was in Rio de Janeiro that he died in 1869, of a quinine overdose while being treated for yellow fever. His compositions from his American period show the influence of his travels; he was especially enamored with Cuban and Puerto Rican folk music.
The symphony "A Night in the Tropics" was probably composed in Guadeloupe in 1858-59 and premiered in Havana in 1859. A year later it received a second performance, also in Havana, at a "monster concert" involving 650 musicians, inspired by Berlioz's similar concerts in Paris. There were no further performances during Gottschalk's life; the score remained in Havana until it was stolen in 1932, and resurfaced in a New York library in the 1950s. The first performance after Gottschalk's death was in 1955, by the Columbia University orchestra, and the first recording came in 1971. "A Night in the Tropics" is unusually written in only two movements that could be regarded as two linked tone poems. The first, a lyrical Andante movement subtitled "Nuit dans les tropiques," depicts a "tropical sunset-with storm" and recalls Berlioz and early Wagner. The second movement, subtitled "Une fête sous les tropiques," incorporates a number of Latin American and New Orleans dances; it uses the theme from Gottschalk's early piano piece "Bamboula" as its primary theme, makes extensive use of the Cuban cinquillo rhythm, and also contains the earliest known orchestral setting of a samba. The other innovation in this movement is the use of Cuban percussion: the score called for a variety of Afro-Cuban drums along with maracas and guiro, all instruments that had never been used in an orchestral setting before. These "exotic" elements fit seamlessly into a framework grounded in French Romanticism, which even includes a fugue near the movement's climax.
I. Andante (Nuit dans les tropiques)
II. Allegro moderato (Une fête sous les tropiques)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) was the first American musician to gain widespread recognition in Europe. He was known mainly as a virtuoso pianist, but was also a prolific composer who drew on his unusual background for inspiration. Gottschalk was born in New Orleans, the son of a British Jewish father and a Haitian Creole mother. He was exposed to a wide variety of musical traditions throughout his life, first at home and in the streets of his native city, and later in his travels through Latin America and the Caribbean. At thirteen, already a piano prodigy, Gottschalk went to Paris to continue his musical studies. He was rejected by the Paris Conservatoire without an audition, purely on the basis of his nationality, with the head of the piano faculty remarking that "America is a country of steam engines, not of musicians." Eventually gaining access to the Paris musical establishment through the help of family friends, Gottschalk was "discovered" when he performed Chopin's first piano concerto before a small audience that included Chopin himself. Chopin took him on as a student and predicted that he would become "the king of pianists." Around the same time, Gottschalk began to compose his own music for piano, drawing on the music of New Orleans for inspiration. Regarded as new and exotic in Europe, his earliest compositions created a massive sensation when they were published. These included what would become his signature piece, "Bamboula," a fantasy on two Louisiana Creole melodies.
Gottschalk returned to America in 1853, settling in New York, and toured extensively in the United States and Latin America. By 1860 he was the most famous pianist in the New World; a San Francisco newspaper described him as having traveled 95,000 miles by rail and given over 1,000 concerts in the Americas. In 1865, after a scandalous affair, he left the United States and moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he continued to tour in South America. It was in Rio de Janeiro that he died in 1869, of a quinine overdose while being treated for yellow fever. His compositions from his American period show the influence of his travels; he was especially enamored with Cuban and Puerto Rican folk music.
The symphony "A Night in the Tropics" was probably composed in Guadeloupe in 1858-59 and premiered in Havana in 1859. A year later it received a second performance, also in Havana, at a "monster concert" involving 650 musicians, inspired by Berlioz's similar concerts in Paris. There were no further performances during Gottschalk's life; the score remained in Havana until it was stolen in 1932, and resurfaced in a New York library in the 1950s. The first performance after Gottschalk's death was in 1955, by the Columbia University orchestra, and the first recording came in 1971. "A Night in the Tropics" is unusually written in only two movements that could be regarded as two linked tone poems. The first, a lyrical Andante movement subtitled "Nuit dans les tropiques," depicts a "tropical sunset-with storm" and recalls Berlioz and early Wagner. The second movement, subtitled "Une fête sous les tropiques," incorporates a number of Latin American and New Orleans dances; it uses the theme from Gottschalk's early piano piece "Bamboula" as its primary theme, makes extensive use of the Cuban cinquillo rhythm, and also contains the earliest known orchestral setting of a samba. The other innovation in this movement is the use of Cuban percussion: the score called for a variety of Afro-Cuban drums along with maracas and guiro, all instruments that had never been used in an orchestral setting before. These "exotic" elements fit seamlessly into a framework grounded in French Romanticism, which even includes a fugue near the movement's climax.
I. Andante (Nuit dans les tropiques)
II. Allegro moderato (Une fête sous les tropiques)