Submitted by Mark Anderson, Oct 4, 2007 09:28

I first heard the music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk in Graduate School at Northwestern University in Dr Thomas Willis's class. It was the 2nd movement of his symphony 'A Night in the Tropics'. Dr Willis was playing recordings of 10 different selections of American Music and we were to order them by the era we thought they were written in. Not one of the 14 of us got the Gottschalk in the correct era. We all listed it as 20th Century circa 1950-1960. How wrong we were.

I was shocked when I found out who wrote it and when they lived. I was further shocked and dismayed to have lived and worked in music my whole life (all of 25 at that point) and never have heard of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Thus began my life-long quest to hear more of Gottschalk and find out more about him. The Bi-Centennial in 1976 provided much research into and performances of Gottschalk's music. I wrote my term paper about him. If you want a time-machine to transport you back to what it felt like to be alive in the Civil War step into "The Union", "The Banjo" or the lovely lullaby "Berceuse".

There is no doubt that Gottschalk was a major influence in the Civil War and maybe a major pre-cursor to Rag Time music which is a direct descendant of "The Banjo" or I'm deaf, dumb and stupid. One of my favorite quotes about his music went something like this "Mr. Gottschalk sets melodies together that seem to have nothing in common but under his masterful hand blend together in perfect harmony, would that the nations of the world listen and learn". In "The Union" Yankee Doodle, Hail Columbia and The Star Spangled Banner are combined. In another composition Hail Columbia and the National Anthem of Brazil are combined (I think), again demonstrating his musical genius.

That said, thanks Mr. Kirsch for keeping the memory of LMG alive.

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