An Introduction to America’s Music

CHAPTER 5 | LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK: A NEW ORLEANS ORIGINAL 123

LOUIS MOREAU GOTTSCHALK:

A NEW ORLEANS ORIGINAL

In June 1857 New Orleans–born composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk

was bound by ship from Cuba to St. Thomas when his vessel passed within sight

of the island of Hispaniola. Gottschalk’s fi rst-ever glimpse of the Haitian coast

brought to mind stories he had heard as a child. His mother was descended from

an offi cial of the French colonial regime that ruled the island until the slave

rebellion of the 1790s overthrew it. “W hen very young,” Gottschalk recalled in

his journal, “I never tired of hearing my grandmother relate the terrible strife

that our family, like all the rest of the colonists, had to sustain” when the slaves

overwhelmed them. That memory led to another from Gottschalk’s boyhood.

“In the evening, the Negroes, myself, and the children of the house formed a

circle around my grandmother. We would listen, by the trembling fi re on the

hearth, under the coals of which Sally, the old Negress [the Gottschalks’ long-

time slave], baked her sweet potatoes.... We listened to Sally so well that we

knew all of her stories by heart, with an interest that has lasted till today.” For

Gottschalk, the “picturesque language,” “exquisite originality,” and “simple and

touching melody” of Creole ballads he had learned in his youth went “right to

the heart” and conjured up a “dream of unknown worlds.”

Not only did Gottschalk remember his past; he also relied on it as an artis-

tic source. The son of an English-Jewish father and a mother who was cultur-

ally French by way of Haiti, raised Roman Catholic in a household where blacks

and whites mingled freely, Gottschalk recognized the artistic possibilities in his

cultural background. In the annals of American composition, he is known for

bringing indigenous themes and rhythms into music written for the concert

hall. His shipboard refl ections show that this practice was rooted in respect for

the unique appeal of these supposedly primitive sounds.

GOTTSCHALK AND HIS MUSIC

Born in 1829 into a family that valued his musical talent, Gottschalk also had

the good fortune to grow up in a lively musical environment. The population

of New Orleans stood at 46,000 in 1830, supporting several full-time theaters

and half a dozen dance halls—a mecca for musicians seeking employment. Local

music stores sold instruments and sheet music, and they published the work of

local composers. A touring circuit that connected New Orleans with New York

and Havana brought many performing musicians to town. The city’s streets and

saloons were home to such informal music makers as fi ddlers and banjo pick-

ers. Organists played and choirs sang in Roman Catholic churches. Army bands

offered a range of music from military to recreational. And African Americans

congregated in Congo Square to keep alive their traditions of music and dancing.

Thus New Orleans, with its mingling of Spanish, French, and free and enslaved

black residents, enjoyed a highly diverse musical life, from artistically elegant to

functional and homespun—a diversity that in the early twentieth century would

give rise to jazz (see chapter 12).

Gottschalk’s career was rooted in this musical richness. His mother took him

to the opera, and he also picked up his musical language in front of the hearth

New Orleans

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