Product Description
Originally published in 1881.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Notes of a Pianist; Gottschalk
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.

Fascinating look at American History from the pen of a Musical Genius
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.

Notes of an American Original
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. ... Read more

Product Description
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American original. A spellbinding piano virtuoso, he was America's first internationally recognized composer, whose "classical" works received accolades from Hector Berlioz and Victor Hugo, and whose arch-romantic melodies became for Americans the standard expressions of common emotions.Perhaps most important, his immensely popular Louisiana and Caribbean pieces--such as Danza, Pasquinade, or Bamboula--anticipated ragtime by fifty years. Indeed, the colorful and exotic textures of Gottschalk's music establish him at the head of what is today the mainstream of popular American culture.

In Bamboula!, S. Frederick Starr presents an authoritatively researched, engagingly written biography of America's first authentic musical voice. Starr paints for us a striking portrait of Gottschalk's childhood in 1830s New Orleans, a city madly devoted to music, where opera companies, music halls, fiddlers and banjo-pickers, church choirs, and Army bands all contributed to what Starr calls "the most stunning manifestation of Jacksonian democracy in the realm of culture to be found anywhere in America." We meet Gottschalk's African-American nurse Sally, who regaled him with the creole songs, legends, and lore of her native Haiti, which would inform some of his finest music. We travel with Gottschalk to Paris, where he was a sensation, playing in fashionable salons for the likes of Lamartine, Gautier, and Dumas; and we join his flight from the Revolution of 1848 to a town north of Paris, where he composed his first great works--Bamboula, La Savane, Le Bananier, and Le Mancenillier--all published over the name "Gottschalk of Louisiana." Starr describes Gottschalk's successful return to New York City in the early 1850s, where he enjoyed a degree of popularity never before accorded to an American performer or composer, becoming our first homegrown concert idol. But Starr also examines the life-long struggle between the Catholic Gottschalk and earnest Protestant champions of "serious" music, a battle that pitted the austere values of northern Europe against the brighter sensibilities of Paris, Louisiana, and the West Indies.

Based on extensive research, including hundreds of letters written by Gottschalk (in French, Spanish, and English) which are used here for the first time, Bamboula! illuminates an exotic but tragic life, as well as one of the most democratic phases of American cultural life, a world of bustling impresarios and America's first bohemian circle. A major biography in every sense, it will help reestablish Gottschalk's place in American musical history. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Pathetic
Gennara Moore is upset - too many half truths, errors and nonsense littered the book to make it useful. I agree. it is not enough to pile up the list of all documents available in one library or another to make a book, You have to know what you are writing about. The result is pathetic.

The Biography Of Gottschalk
I got a copy of Bamboula after getting to know some of the music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk.This is arguably among the best-researched biographies I have read but it also is a bit dry at times.This is because there is so much information packed into each page of the book that it turns into an itinerary rather than a biography. S. Frederick Starr begins his book at the send, literally, with Gottschalk's death. He proceeds with excellent chapters on Gottschalk's family origins and the musical world of New Orleans. I had not known that America was as anywhere as cultured as New Orleans was; and Mr. Starr explains how the musical world he was born into affected his own music making.

The book follows Gottschalk as a prodigy in Paris, his European travels as a virtuoso pianist and his triumphant return to New Orleans as a young man only to find disappointment as he played in such cultural bastions as Boston.Gottschalk was a traveler and he ceaselessly journeyed during his short life to much acclaim and adoration. Financially, he was challenged by having to provide for his family on the death of his father, his own bad judgment and the need to rely on managers.

Perhaps one of the more eye-opening chapters was the numbing performance schedule he kept during the Civil War when he traveled from one engagement to another mostly sleeping on trains and having to endure the extreme discomfort of the trains themselves and the people that were packed into them. Reading Mr. Starr's book has led me to listen to more of Gottschalk's music and wish that more of his music survived.This is an important contribution to the understanding of America's first true composer and as such is a great achievement.As I said, the text could use a bit of spicing up here and there but if you want to know about Gottschalk look no further.

no item received
Unfortunately I've not received my purchase after 2 months. I tried to get information about the delivery date from Hudson Book but no feedback till today.
I'm quite disappointed about this seller and definitively I'll not buy again from them.

Fine work, couple of negatives
Starr's research as other reviewers have mentioned was done well.Starr gives fine historical background to the many places Gottschalk lived.Details of the composer's life also are explained in specifics.My fault with this work-from a pianist point of view, is the author gives no insight to how Gottschalk became one of the five greatest pianists of the 19th century, in same ranks with Chopin, Listz, Thalberg.Starr makes no effort to show how Gottschalk practiced, and how he could keep up his incredible technique stills while traveling so much.He descibes Gottschalk's early training in Paris, but after that barely mentions how Gottschalk took his piano skills to the highest in world.Another problem I had is the author often went into little depth on how Gottschalk composed.Some of his great works are given a passing sentence and left at that, with little, and often no musical analysis of any piece. In fact, one won't find a musical staff in the whole book.One of his finest little caprices "Suis Moi" ("Follow Me"), isn't even listed in the book.I understand the composer wrote over 100 pieces, depth cannot be given to too many, but essentially there was none of this for any piece-say for except a couple.
Some of this might stem from the biographer himself not being a pianist, and not a composer (at least one of any distinction). Perhaps Starr lacked the neccessary insight for more musical opinions, or perhaps too much of Gottschalk's life is still relatively unknown.I'll perhaps give a pass to author on the latter point, and give book 4 stars because it is the best biography on him yet written.

Bamboozelled!
While I must agree with the other reviews, that Starr certainly does include a lot of references, just 40 pages into this tome - that's less than 10% - I am painfully aware of two things:

1. The constant stretch toEXPLAIN everything (hisfather's family's roots came via Germany and England - THEREFORE, LMG never played there).

2. A great deal of FACT is"debunked" in thiseffort.For instance, one instance, hesaysCongo Square never held slave dances duringGottschalk's time. Well, Benjamin Latrobevisited in 1819 and specifically sought out this attraction (for it was an attraction eventhen), he even goes togreat length to describethe instruments, the drumming, dancing, singing and "savagry" (see "Louisiana Sojourns" and"Congo Square in New Orleans").

Let us not lose history in aneffort to explain.Use all the facts, not just those which serve yourpurpose.

Unfortunately - I now do not believe every conclusion and"fact" in the entire 450+ page tome!

This is very unfortunate. I loved Starr's "Southern Comfort" and use it often.My adviceis unless you have years to sort out all the half-truths here, you shouldskip Bamboula! ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (3)

"American Chopin"
Gottschalk is a name few mention when talking about great composers, but he is equal to many who have much more name recognition.His virtuosity at the piano over-shadowed how good a composer he was.Calling him the "American Chopin" is not an exagerration.The book has some great works, but is missing a few of his masterpieces, namely "Radieuse', "La Scintilla" and the "Battle Cry of Freedom".

Ah, Gottschalk...
I sigh only because I wish I could obtain his music somehow. Unfortunately, it is not very readily available to me. I have found it here, but it's either special order or out of print, and neither is too accessible. Briefly I was able to borrow the music of this charming composer, and I enjoyed it for the short time I was able to see it. I hope can someday become reacquainted.

The FIrst American Composer
What has happened to American music patriotism?

Louis Moreau Gottschalk was probably the first American Pop Star !In the 1850's women swooned. If it were permissal to hurl their nickers on stage they would have donedo! The story goes that he was the musical Brad Pitt of the age.

This isa music book for pianists! It contains a wealth of information about thispop star in the form of notes to the music as well as the music itself (forthose who play the piano).

Dover Publications are often more userfriendly than some of the others. This publicationcontains anecdotes andcopies of the original binder covers from some of the music books firstpublished.

For pianists this is a delightful and well presented editionof an important part of American history.

There are a number ofbeautifully played CD's available. Get the book and read along with the CD.Now that is something you never thought of! ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subtitle: During His Professional Tours in the United States, Canada, the Antilles, and South America : Preceded by a Short Biographical Sketch With Contemporaneous Criticisms; Original Publisher: J.B. Lippincott; Publication date: 1881; Subjects: Musicians; Pianists; Biography ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Louis Gottschalk (1829-1869) was the first American pianist and composer to win international fame. His creative use of the colorful and exotic musical idioms of his native New Orleans foreshadowed by some fifty years the appearance of these same influences in early jazz. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The Facts and Some Embellishments -
On the whole this is a "good" book on an intriguing character.Loggins obviously has access to Gottschalk's personal writings, has done his homework and gives a very credible biography on a too-little appreciated American.This book will give you a fairly detailed summary of Gottschalk's life in a straight-forward, plainly written style.There are some embellishments here and there but it is pretty obvious when Loggins is giving his own spin to things (e.g. Gottschalk's Spanish venture and the subsequent damage to his hand).

If you are interested in a readable introduction to a pianist whose life and reputation are as varied and interesting as his music then this is a good place to start.

Gottschalk and his music are very representative of his time.The exuberance of life lived, in the face of ever present threat of disease (yellow fever in particular), shows forth in the passions of nationalistic pride, the charm of social courtesy in a highly stratified culture, the elegance of sophisticated conversation and cultured interaction, which never-the-less was not out of touch with the lower classes, both slave and peasant.Gottschalk's life makes plain that culture can and must recognize social stratification in the context of mutual respect.It argues for the possibility of degrees of sophistication without elitism.We hear that in his music, as the complexity of rhythm and velocity demand the highest levels of virtuosity, yet the melodies are rooted in the common and even elemental strands in the social fabric.His was a life of liberty and his music is democratic to its roots.

In its own way, this book communicates some notion of these things, yet, it could have risen a bit higher than it does.The facts are there but helpful analysis and insights would have broadened its impact.The simplicity of the language and diction somewhat even argue against what Gottschalk's life and music contributed.It lacks elegance and if there is anything we can say about Gottschalk, it must be that in him and his music, elegance was not lacking.

It's a good book. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Published by: Oliver Ditson and company in 1870 in 222 pages; Subjects: Composers; Pianists; Musicians; Biography & Autobiography / Composers & Musicians; Juvenile Nonfiction / Biography & Autobiography / Music; Music / General; Music / Genres & Styles / Classical; Music / History & Criticism; Music / Individual Composer & Musician; ... Read more

Product Description
Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) is widely acknowledged as the leading American piano virtuoso of the 19th century and as a composer of major significance. Containing well over 500 annotated bibliographic citations and detailed information about Gottschalk's 300 compositions, this bio- bibliography represents the first major reference work on this important musician. The volume presents a brief biography containing an assessment of his contributions to American music, as well as complete information on publication, dedications, notable performances, and sound recordings for each of Gottschalk's compositions, followed by comprehensive bibliographic material useful for student, scholar, and musician alike. ... Read more

Product Description
"Innovating American composer, virtuoso pianist, and swashbuckling Romantic hero, Louis Moreau Gottschalk produced immensely popular works combining the French, Hispanic, and African influences of his native New Orleans. Many of his syncopated compositions anticipated ragtime by half a century. S. Frederick Starr's biography, originally published as "Bamboula!", is the most extensive chronicle available of Gottschalk's eventful life. Starr examines Gottshalk's music, his frenetic life on the road, his virtuosity as a performer, his effect on his audiences, and the scandals surrounding his romantic dalliances. He also reveals a generous and compassionate man who sponsored a host of young musicians and provided financial support for his many siblings." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Badly flawed and poorly research book
L.M Gottschalk has always been ill-treated by the American musicologists and scholars, and this book is no better than the previous biographies of the musician.

The book is badly flawed, and this time Frederick Starr has no excuse. When Vernon Loggins wrote "Where the words end" in the 1950s, the first ever attempt to a serious biography of Gottschalk, he was desperately searching for the notebooks and letters of the musician. He suspected that they should be somewhere, but could not find them. They appear in the early 1980s, thanks to the tenacity of Robert Oggerfeld, who was a collector of memorabilia of the pianist. They are currently in the New York Library but Starr did not consult them probably because he discovered that Gottschalk writes in French to his family (even letters to his father, when Gottschalk is ten years old, are in French).

Musicologists in the U.S want Gottschalk to be the first known American composer, so they go to great lengths to have biographies focused on the American years of the wandering pianist. Starr published his book in 2000. In 1985, the first French book about Gottschalk, using all the letters discovered in the 1980s, revealed that the mother of Gottschalk was a Brusley de Beaubert. Her grand-father was the first judge of Nouvelle-Orleans. Gottschalk was sent to Paris when ten, to live with his cousins: the Fauque de Jonquières. That well-connected aristocratic family pathed the way for Gottschalk to be received at the Spanish court, where Liszt, a commoner, could not.

There is no mention in Starr's biography of this family background and he can't even get the name of Gottschalk's mother right. He also keep calling Gottschalk, Louis-Moreau, which was its stage name, but who was only Moreau for his friends and his sisters.

It is this exceptional family background that explains the unravelling of Gottschalk. When his father, a speculator on the cotton market, lose all his fortune and dies soon after, the family, who was then in Paris with no intention to return to Louisana cannot keep its social rank among the aristocracy. For the sake of appearance, Gottschalk advises his mother, not to lose face, to retire in the South of France, where a Brusley de Beaubert still lives. She refuses.

Gottschalk's sisters could not marry anymore in their social sphere (they were going to flee social disgrace by going to London where a Fauque de Jonquières has exiled himself for political reason. It is the start of Napoleon III reign and the old the aristocracy is a fierce opponent of the Prince-President soon to become Emperor ).

Gottschalk who was in New York for what was supposed to be a short stay of three months became stranded in a country where he had no intention to live.

Frederick Starr's book surfs on those events. He only repeats what Vernon Loggins wrote 50 years before. As for the South American years, for which there are now many letters, not yet translated into English, Starr commits the same error to follow Vernon loggins' book and assumptions. My conclusion: if you want to know what kind of man Gottschalk was and why he never returned to Europe, you should read the French book (so far not available in English) and if you want to write about Gottschalk you should be fluent in French, Spanish and English. It is clearly not the case of Frederick Starr.

Precurser of Jazz Rediscovered
Here, for the first time, is a full biography of America's first great composer who, in the 1850s, anticipated ragtime and jazz by half a century. Meticulously researched and written in a lively and accessible style,the biography details the colorful life of an American original and the trail-blazing father of music in New Orleans. Of interest to anyone interested in Civil War era America or the cultural environment that gave rise to one of America's most original and authentic musics. ... Read more

Product Description
General Books publication date: 2009Original publication date: 1881Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text.When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free.Excerpt: ARRIVAL AT MADRID. 59CHAPTEROx his arrival in Spain he found honours and triumphs awaiting him greater than he had ever received before. At 33ilboa, the first Spanish city in which he played, he gave three concerts in seven days. The entire receipts of the third concert were placed in the hands of the municipal authorities to be devoted to the Maison de Charite. The Ayuntamiento, the directors of the hospital, and the clergy acknowledged the receipt with the warmest thanks.On his arrival at Madrid he wrote to his father the following letters: -- Madrid, 17 November, 1851.The Queen has not yet decided to allow me to play before her. The nobility show themselves somewhat reserved towards inc. It is said that the Queen, on hearing that I am an American, exclaimed that she would never patronize an artist of that nation. Whether this be true or not, the rumour of it has spread abroad, and the" courtiers dislike to show me too marked a degree of courtesy, for fear of irritating Her Majesty. I cannot, however, complain now ; they are all excessively amiable towards me, and for this reason : his Excellency the Duke of Riansares, husband of the Queen Dowager Christina, receives me frequently, and treats me in the kindest manner possible. The Queen Dowager has also sent me an invitation to the ball and supper which she is to give in her palace on the 19th hist., to celebrate the anniversary of the birthday of her daughter, Queen Isabella. The King, Queen, royal children, and all the court will be present.Madrid, 19 November, 1851.Hardly had I returned from putting my last letter in the post-office,... ... Read more

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This sheet music was newly engraved from early and authoritative editions. ... Read more

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Being an American Romantic composer, Gottschalk was one of the first classically trained pianists to incorporate examples of Creole, Latin American, and Afro American dance rhythms within European musical forms. ... Read more

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This sheet music was newly engraved from early and authoritative editions. ... Read more

Product Description
This sheet music was newly engraved from early and authoritative editions. ... Read more

Product Description
This sheet music was newly engraved from early and authoritative editions. ... Read more

Product Description
This sheet music was newly engraved from early and authoritative editions. ... Read more