Recitals and Recitations
Illustrated cover for "Choicest Compositions"
Boston: Oliver Ditson Company, 1888
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Music Division
"I have already given twelve concerts in San Francisco, made
a tour to Sacramento, Placerville, Carson City, Dayton, Gold Hill,
Virginia City, and Dutch Flat. I shall not try to give you an
idea of the fatigue of these travels. Those who are unacquainted
with this country could never conceive what the roads are in the
mountains, and the dangers of all kinds accompanying the route
from San Francisco to Nevada. Let it suffice to say that I
remained in the stage from Placerville to Carson City for twenty
hours. Also that I was sick for three days afterward."
—
Louis Moreau Gottschalk, diary entry for June 1865, quoted in
Gottschalk, Notes of a Pianist, translated by Jeanne
Behrend (1964)
The touring schedules of Gottschalk and other 19th
century performers, as evidenced by their journals and other
written accounts, were as ambitious and physically demanding as
those of many performers today.
It was considered politic for instrumentalists to compose
variations on local songs as encore pieces, so Louis Moreau
Gottschalk composed sets of variations on George F. Root's
"The Battle Cry of Freedom" and Stephen Foster's
"Home, Sweet Home."