Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Louis Moreau Gottschalk  (1829–1869) was a piano virtuoso and composer of Romantic music whose works reflected the music of the Caribbean, Central and South America because of his travels there.   

Gottschalk was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. His father was a Jewish businessman from London, his mother was Creole (part European, part African from Saint-Dominique (Haiti).   Gottschalk was a child prodigy and studied at the Paris Conservatory.  He then traveled to Cuba, Puerto and South America and began incorporating their musical influences into his music.   

Although raised in the South, Gottschalk was a Unionist.  He spent most of the Civil War in New York when not performing.  In 1865, he said he had traveled 10,000 miles and played 1,000 in his life.  Gottschalk left the U.S. in 1865 amidst a scandal involving a young female student and never returned.  He collapsed from yellow fever in 1869 while performing in Rio de Janeiro and died three weeks later, perhaps from an overdose of quinine.


     "Rayon de Azur"  (4:00) 

     Symphony No. 1 "La nuit des tropiques"  ( Night of the Tropics)  (1858)  (11:23, 6:31) 
        Souvenir de la Havane  (1859)  (3:00)  

      Grand Tarantella  (18??)   (8:00) 
        Opera:  Escenas Campestres  (18??)  (13:00)