Polonia, Op.43
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
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Browse piano sheets by Louis Moreau Gottschalk on Zen Virtual Piano. In Paris Louis Moreau Gottschalk was refused admission to the Conservatoire, and its director, Pierre Zimmermann, remarked, “Americans are only seriously interested in steam engines,” and told him to go home and become a mechanic. The young Gottschalk made his real concert debut in Paris in 1849 and then gained fame throughout Western Europe, more especially in Spain and Switzerland, with his virtuosic playing and Creole-inspired compositions. A refusal at the Conservatoire and a concert debut in Paris put the same city on both sides of his early story. A door closed on a pianist from New Orleans and then opened onto concert halls, a contrast that gives his Paris years their shape. Gottschalk was born on 8 May 1829 in New Orleans to an English father and a French Creole mother, and much of his musical style was influenced by Creole and Caribbean rhythms and harmonies. He began to play the piano at the age of three and quickly revealed himself a piano prodigy, easily picking up tunes from the French operas premiering in New Orleans and creating variations on their arias and themes, a kind of exercise that became one of his specialities. A boy turning opera arias into variations was already combining what he heard in the city, which anticipates the mixture in his later pieces. He returned to his native country in 1853, presumably to capitalize on his European reputation, and The New York Times reported in 1853, “A mere pianist.” He nevertheless had zealous admirers, such as Berlioz and Chopin. The New York Times’s “A mere pianist” beside the admiration of Berlioz and Chopin puts the same pianist before two very different audiences. His strength was to try to bridge the gap between the elites and the people, and he often used popular tunes in some of his most substantial works, among them Souvenir de Porto Rico, Marche des Gibaros (1857), The Union, Concert Paraphrase (1862) and Home, Sweet Home (1862). Placing familiar tunes inside concert works shows how openly he borrowed from songs that audiences already knew. His Polonia, Op. 43, in A-flat major, was first published in 1861. From 1865 until his death in 1869 he traveled in Latin America, and after three years in Peru, Chile and Uruguay he arrived in Rio de Janeiro in May 1869, where he died on 18 December 1869. He never married, preferring to travel the United States and Europe and to trace his Creole history back to the Caribbean and to Cuba and South America. A life on tours, and a Creole history he traced back to the Caribbean, Cuba and South America, make travel seem as central to him as the keyboard.
Browse piano sheets by Louis Moreau Gottschalk on Zen Virtual Piano.
In Paris Louis Moreau Gottschalk was refused admission to the Conservatoire, and its director, Pierre Zimmermann, remarked, “Americans are only seriously interested in steam engines,” and told him to go home and become a mechanic. The young Gottschalk made his real concert debut in Paris in 1849 and then gained fame throughout Western Europe, more especially in Spain and Switzerland, with his virtuosic playing and Creole-inspired compositions. A refusal at the Conservatoire and a concert debut in Paris put the same city on both sides of his early story. A door closed on a pianist from New Orleans and then opened onto concert halls, a contrast that gives his Paris years their shape.
Gottschalk was born on 8 May 1829 in New Orleans to an English father and a French Creole mother, and much of his musical style was influenced by Creole and Caribbean rhythms and harmonies. He began to play the piano at the age of three and quickly revealed himself a piano prodigy, easily picking up tunes from the French operas premiering in New Orleans and creating variations on their arias and themes, a kind of exercise that became one of his specialities. A boy turning opera arias into variations was already combining what he heard in the city, which anticipates the mixture in his later pieces.
He returned to his native country in 1853, presumably to capitalize on his European reputation, and The New York Times reported in 1853, “A mere pianist.” He nevertheless had zealous admirers, such as Berlioz and Chopin. The New York Times’s “A mere pianist” beside the admiration of Berlioz and Chopin puts the same pianist before two very different audiences. His strength was to try to bridge the gap between the elites and the people, and he often used popular tunes in some of his most substantial works, among them Souvenir de Porto Rico, Marche des Gibaros (1857), The Union, Concert Paraphrase (1862) and Home, Sweet Home (1862). Placing familiar tunes inside concert works shows how openly he borrowed from songs that audiences already knew.
His Polonia, Op. 43, in A-flat major, was first published in 1861. From 1865 until his death in 1869 he traveled in Latin America, and after three years in Peru, Chile and Uruguay he arrived in Rio de Janeiro in May 1869, where he died on 18 December 1869. He never married, preferring to travel the United States and Europe and to trace his Creole history back to the Caribbean and to Cuba and South America. A life on tours, and a Creole history he traced back to the Caribbean, Cuba and South America, make travel seem as central to him as the keyboard.
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Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
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In New Orleans, on 8 May 1829, to an English father and a French Creole mother.
He was refused admission to the Paris Conservatoire, and its director Pierre Zimmermann remarked that “Americans are only seriously interested in steam engines” and told him to go home and become a mechanic.
Works that use popular tunes include Souvenir de Porto Rico, Marche des Gibaros (1857), The Union, Concert Paraphrase (1862) and Home, Sweet Home (1862); his Polonia, Op. 43 was first published in 1861.