Gottschalk, Louis Moreau - "Souvenir de la Havane: Grande Caprice de Concert" for Oboe & Strings Opus 39 Hautbois, Orchestre à cordes |
Compositeur : | Gottschalk, Louis Moreau (1829 - 1869) | ||
Instrumentation : | Hautbois, Orchestre à cordes | ||
Genre : | Classique | ||
Arrangeur : Editeur : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||
Droit d'auteur : | Public Domain | ||
Ajoutée par magataganm, 16 Jun 2020 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. His works were influenced by his far-flung travels, as well as his globetrotting imagination. Fancying himself as a virtuosic interpreter of rustic folk traditions after the manner of Chopin and his mazurkas, Gottschalk was particularly inspired by the musical traditions of the Caribbean, and a number of his best-known piano works draw on the song and dance traditions of the French Antilles, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and surrounding areas. Souvenirs de la Havane (Souvenirs From Havana, Op. 39), is one of a handful of pieces Gottschalk composed in the 1850s after the manner of the Caribbean contradanza, and is a fine example of Gottschalk's effort to balance crowd-pleasing pianistic flourish with a desire to convey, through careful articulation and texture, the essence of the musical culture from which he borrows. Gottschalk composed Souvenirs de la Havane (or, in some editions, "Recuerdos de la Habana" or "Caprice de concert") in 1859, at the beginning of an infamously indulgent three-year tour cum extended vacation in the West Indies. (Other pieces from the period include the popular four-hand work Ojos Criollos, Op. 37, and the lively Réponds-moi.) The piece is underscored nearly throughout by the distinctive habanera rhythm, beginning simply underneath a dark and rather Spartan melody but gradually infiltrating the entire texture. Gottschalk's syncopated rhythms, by themselves quite adventurous considering the time period in question, are set off even further by elaborate polyrhythms between the steady pulse of the habanera in the bass and occasional fluid triplet elaborations in the right hand. The rhythmic vibrancy of the piece's middle section couples with a shift to major mode, while the composer's extrovert peforming personality adds elements of pianistic flourish, as in the tricky extended passage for right hand alone, or the lightning-fast leaps across the keyboard near the end (marked Volante). Here, Gottschalk derives the piece's energy from the contradanza, even as the pianist in him presents the form in elaborate virtuosic dressing. Source: AllMusic (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/louis-moreau-g ottschalk-mn0001767715/biography). Although originally composed for Piano, I created this interpretation of "Souvenir de la Havane: Grande Caprice de Concert" (Opus 39) for Oboe & Strings (2 Violins, Viola, Cello & Bass). |