AMERICA JOINS IN
A composer whose career began very much like Chopin's, but later diverged owing to his failure to attain a comparable level of social prestige, was Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–69), a native of New Orleans who was the first American-born composer to make his mark within the European tradition of fine-art music. His father, London-born and Leipzig-educated, was a prosperous merchant from a highly assimilated (possibly converted) German-Jewish family like Mendelssohn's; his mother, a skilled amateur pianist and operatic singer, was the daughter of a celebrated French Creole baker who had fled to Louisiana as a refugee from the Haitian slave revolts of the 1790s. His socially ambitious parents identified wholeheartedly with European high culture and brought up their children in an atmosphere effectively shielded from the local popular culture by a well-developed salon and opera-house network. As soon as their gifted son had received his basic training from the local cathedral organist, he was packed off to Paris, aged thirteen, for finishing.
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 7 Self and Other." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2024. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-007012.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 7 Self and Other. In Oxford University Press, Music in the Nineteenth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 8 Dec. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-007012.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 7 Self and Other." In Music in the Nineteenth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 8 Dec. 2024, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume3/actrade-9780195384833-div1-007012.xml
