Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 1869) was an American
composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso
performer of his own romantic piano works. He spent
most of his working career outside of the United
States. He was the eldest son of a Jewish-English New
Orleans real estate speculator and his French-descended
bride. Gottschalk may have heard the drums at Place
Congo in New Orleans, but his exposure to Creole melody
likely came through his own household; his mother had
grown up in Haiti and fl...(+)
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 1869) was an American
composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso
performer of his own romantic piano works. He spent
most of his working career outside of the United
States. He was the eldest son of a Jewish-English New
Orleans real estate speculator and his French-descended
bride. Gottschalk may have heard the drums at Place
Congo in New Orleans, but his exposure to Creole melody
likely came through his own household; his mother had
grown up in Haiti and fled to Louisiana after that
island's slave uprising. Piano study was undertaken
with Narcisse Lettellier, and at age 11, Gottschalk was
sent to Paris. Denied entrance to the Conservatoire, he
continued with Charles Hallé and Camille Stamaty,
adding composition with Pierre Maleden. His Paris debut
at the Salle Pleyel in 1845 earned praise from Chopin.
By the end of the 1840s, Gottschalk's first works, such
as Bamboula, appeared. These syncopated pieces based on
popular Creole melodies rapidly gained popularity
worldwide. Gottschalk left Paris in 1852 to join his
father in New York, only to encounter stiff competition
from touring foreign artists. With his father's death
in late 1853, Gottschalk inherited support of his
mother and six siblings. In 1855, he signed a contract
with publisher William Hall to issue several pieces,
including The Banjo and The Last Hope. The Last Hope is
a sad and sweetly melancholy piece, and it proved
hugely popular. Gottschalk found himself obliged to
repeat it at every concert, and wrote "even my paternal
love for The Last Hope has succumbed under the terrible
necessity of meeting it at every step." With an
appearance at Dodsworth Hall in December 1855,
Gottschalk finally found his audience. For the first
time he was solvent, and at his mother's death in 1857
Gottschalk was released from his familial obligations.
He embarked on a tour of the Caribbean and didn't
return for five years. When this ended, America was in
the midst of Civil War. Gottschalk supported the north,
touring Union states until 1864. Gottschalk wearied of
the horrors surrounding him, becoming an avid proponent
of education, playing benefit concerts for public
schools and libraries. During a tour to California in
1865, Gottschalk entered into an involvement with a
young woman attending a seminary school in Oakland, and
the press excoriated him. He escaped on a steamer bound
for Panama City. Instead of returning to New York, he
pressed on to Peru, Chile, Uruguay, and Argentina,
staying one step ahead of revolutions, rioting, and
cholera epidemics, but he began to break down under the
strain. Gottschalk contracted malaria in Brazil in
August 1869; still recovering, he was hit in the
abdomen by a sandbag thrown by a student in São Paolo.
In a concert at Rio de Janeiro on November 25,
Gottschalk collapsed at the keyboard. He had
appendicitis, which led to peritonitis. On December 18,
1869, Gottschalk died at the age of 40.
Morte!!, Gottschalk's swan song, was first played in
public on June 9, 1868, at a private dinner held at the
Hotel de la Louvre in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In an
Argentine newspaper, El Pueblo, Gottschalk was quoted
as saying that "Morte is a little piece that I have
just now begun to play, but I have never played in
public, nor will I." Gottschalk further explained that
"it is the piece that I love most, because I want it
for myself."
Morte!! is a short piano piece that bears programmatic
information indicating a funeral scene. A deceased
woman is carried to the place of burial in a cortege, a
funeral bell tolls, and the body is laid to rest. In an
1868 article that originated with a Buenos Aires
newspaper, a writer pseudonymously named Walsh reports
as hearsay a more personal motive for the composition
of the work. According to this report, the work was
inspired by news Gottschalk had received from San
Francisco of the early death of a woman he had loved.
She was an "admirer" and the daughter of a "commanding
father," and when their liaison was discovered,
Gottschalk was forced to flee. The story appears in one
other contemporary source, although additional, perhaps
equally scandalous explanations for Gottschalk's abrupt
departure from San Francisco in 1865 are known. Writing
to his sisters, who were concerned about the news
piece, Gottschalk replied, "This (situation) is
embarrassing. I think that Walsh has drawn upon his own
imagination to write this little article. But where
there's smoke, there's fire. ..."
Gottschalk reconsidered his position about not playing
Morte!! in public, and soon he was writing excitedly
that women at his concert appearances were swooning at
the sound of it. In October 1869, Gottschalk sent the
manuscript off to his publishers, Hall & Son, along
with that of Pensée Poétique and a note that read,
"Morte, played by me, never misses a success of tears."
On November 25, 1869, at a concert in Rio de Janeiro,
Gottschalk played Morte!!, following it with his
Tremolo; during the latter piece Gottschalk collapsed
and had to be carried off to his hotel, where he died
three weeks later. As reports of Gottschalk's death
unfolded throughout the world, the order of the pieces
played at his final concert somehow was changed, and
the legend began that it was during Morte!! that
Gottschalk suffered the fatal blow. It's a story that
still persists in many sources relating to Gottschalk's
life, yet an eyewitness to the event confirms the less
dramatic ordering.
Although it was heard at all of the various memorial
observances for Gottschalk worldwide, Morte!! never
caught on in the United States, where it was regarded
as a morbid curiosity. However, Morte!! remains one of
Gottschalk's most famous compositions in South America,
where it is regarded as equal in drama and pathos to
Chopin's celebrated Funeral March.
Source: AllMusic
(https://www.allmusic.com/artist/louis-moreau-g
ottschalk-mn0001767715/biography).
Although originally composed for Piano, I created this
interpretation of "Morte! Lamentation" (Opus 60) for
Flute & Strings (2 Violins, 2 Violas, Cello & Bass).