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Pianos and Pianists - Consultant Editor Ates Orga

The First American Pianist

 

 

Interlude

 

LOUIS MOREAU
GOTTSCHALK

 

(pronounciation: 'close the lips, advance the tongue, appear a little like whistling, and you will have the key' - La France musicale)

 

'My American manager Mr Victor Thrane was an enormous man, very tall and fat ... and of a more venturesome a spirit than his bulk and height suggested. He was originally a timber merchant, and I always imagined to myself how far more fittingly he must have been employed wrestling with great logs than with pianists ... Thrane employed as his booking agent a man of unusual calibre. This was JW Gotschalk [sic] who, as nephew of the pianist and composer of the same name, had some musical reputation, and what was more useful, he was a lightweight boxing champion. This qualification proved an "Open Sesame" even in the toughest places in California, and some of them were pretty tough in those days [1898]. But directly the name of "Jimmy Gotschalk!" was announced, all doors were open to our booking manager who thereby did good business for us. Gotschalk was a charming fellow, who unfortunately came to a tragic end; for having set up in concert management on his own, he was accidentally killed at a railroad crossing with all his family, as he was proceeding in a horse carriage to some town or other.'

- Mark Hambourg, From Piano to Forte (London 1931)

 

'Beethoven and Liszt have contributed to the advent of long hair'

- Gottschalk

 

'Without question the most colourful personality, the most articulate intelligence, the most talented performer and the most provocative composer among the mid-19th century [American] pianists'

- H Wiley Hitchcock, Music in the United States: A Historical Introduction
© Prentice-Hall Inc (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1969)

 

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