Notes of a Pianist [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was sometimes called the American Chopin, or the Chopin of the Creoles. He wasn't. His music, mostly piano pieces, is by turns jovial, stormy, sentimental, or lachrymose, and is a surprising blend of European, African-American, and Latin music, with plenty of quotations from American national ballads thrown in. It isn't superficial, but its appeal is frank and obvious, which is perhaps why he isn't heard often these days. If his works are absent from concert performances now, they can easily be found in recordings, and they are worth listening to. His pieces were enormously popular at the time around the Civil War. People bought his sheet music if they could not hear him. To hear him, they often did not have to go far out of their way, because Gottschalk traveled all over to give solo concerts or to organize concerts by others (sometimes Monster Concerts of 650 musicians). He was wildly popular, mostly because he worked hard to be, but he caught on as a matinee idol. It would be wonderful to hear him play; even those who objected to his compositions were amazed by his proficiency at the piano, and caricatures of him playing show hundreds of fingers flying over the keys. We can't hear him play, but we can read what he had to say about playing and about the life of a nineteenth century musical superstar in his collection of notes, diary entries, and articles that was first published eleven years after his death in 1869 and is now back in print. _Notes of a Pianist: The Chronicles of a New Orleans Music Legend_ (Princeton University Press) is a delightful book. Gottschalk was masterful with words as well as with musical notes.

Gottschalk has given a funny and lively account of the travails of being an artist on the road (or rail or sea) even during war years; there are happy and frustrating encounters with the public, and stories of pleasure in performing well or doing good. He is a great complainer, often about people he sees or performs for. Another target is the pianos he has to put up with; in Panama, "The audience appears to be charmed, while I am playing on a cottage piano that I suspect was the product of an illicit union between a jew's-harp and a large kettle." But this is not the account of a peevish man; more than once he says of an annoyance something like "These things are amusing and break the monotony of our existence." He also has many times to report that in a certain concert every piece was encored, that the crowd was enthusiastic, that he has been given jeweled laurels, or a bouquet "not less than four feet in circumference." He is amused by misprints on his own playbills, and by newspaper reports of his death. "I wish to speak of my death. This sad event took place at Santiago three months ago. I was carried off in three days by a frightful attack of black vomit; it is the newspaper _Savana la Grande_ that tells it; but the _Revue de Villa Clara_, without doubt better informed, makes me succumb to an aneurism of the heart, which I much prefer, the aneurism being much more poetical than the black vomit."

A journal is a perfect place for an author to record the foibles of others and of himself, but readers will find here remarkable descriptions of such problems as using the train during a time of war and having to share it with Union soldiers who are wounded or who are boisterously rude. Embarking for Norfolk, he has to pledge an oath of allegiance to the government. He was at sea off Acapulco when the captain of another steamer boarded with news, "... words like thunderbolts: 'Richmond is taken,' 'Lee has surrendered,' 'Lincoln has been assassinated'." He had personally played for the president years before, noting, "Lincoln is remarkably ugly, but has an intelligent air, and his eyes have a remarkable expression of goodness and mildness." He reports from the middle of a battle for Lima in a revolt in 1865. Gottschalk had an amazing life, generously shared here in one amusing and surprising page after another. He possessed enormous talents to entertain, within the concert hall and on the printed page. If you don't know his music, read his book, and then listen to, say, the merry and moving symphonic _A Night in the Tropics_. I think you'll be hooked.

This is a great account of what it was like to be the first concert pianist in America. Since Gottschalk was performing during the Civil War and his comments and commentary on life as it was then are priceless. He is truly an American original. More people should take the time to discover this lost piece of Americana.

This is a great book! Gottschalk was a truly gifted individual and ahead of his time in many ways. It is so nice that he kept a journal and it is also wonderful that this material has been published. This is very good reading and will appeal to many different tastes.