Gottschalk, Louis Moreau

Related Category: Music: History, Composers, and Performers: Biographies

(môrō´ gŏt´shôk), 1829–69, American pianist and composer, b. New Orleans, of English-French parentage, studied in Paris. Chopin and Berlioz praised his playing, and he appeared successfully in Europe, the United States, and South America. His orchestral compositions include two symphonic poems, La Nuit des Tropiques and Montevideo. He composed more than 100 piano pieces, essentially written in the romantic style with additional elements drawn from vernacular American traditions such as African-American and Creole rhythms and Spanish subjects. Immensely popular in his lifetime, these include The Banjo, The Last Hope, and The Dying Poet.

See his Notes of a Pianist (1881).