"The Union" - Louis M. Gottschalk. The South Puget Sound Comm College Orch - arranged by Gerry Amato

"L'Union" (The Union), is a piano composition written by American-born composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk in 1862 that represents an early patriotic warhorse. His mixture of three nationalistic songs from the Civil War era (The Star-Spangled Banner, Hail Columbia, and Yankee Doodle) creates a brilliant showpiece for the piano as Gottschalk intertwines the 3 pieces together into a musical tapestry. It adapts magnificently as an orchestral score for public performance such as the 4th of July celebration.
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Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869):
• As a young boy born in New Orleans, he heard the "bamboula" drum rhythm from the African slaves performing in Congo Square (now Louis Armstrong Park). Oral history has it that slaves often practiced the traditional bamboula art form in the “bush.” Bamboula is a dance that originated from Africa and spread throughout the West Indies, South, Central, and North America, and other regions of the Western Hemisphere where Africans were imported as slaves. He incorporated this 'syncopated' dance rhythm into his own piano compositions that later became the roots of ragtime and early American jazz.
• He was the first international American pianist/composer who travelled to Europe, and even performed for Frederick Chopin. Chopin complimented Gottschalk on his composing and performance, and Debussy later mimicked Gottschalk's bamboula dance rhythm in his Golliwog's Cakewalk.
• He created the first USO-type shows by traveling to the front lines of the Civil War with his Chickering grand piano and performing for the troops. He would also travel by train to perform for small towns across the southern United States that had never heard classical music.
• He composed almost exclusively for solo piano and multiple pianos.
• In the last two years of his life, he performed 1000 concerts throughout parts of the United States and South America.
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"The Union" sheet music will be published to JW Pepper very soon...along with 3 others: Souvenir de Porto Rico, The Last Hope, and Tournament Galop. Please check back on their website.
**Special thanks to Cameron May and The South Puget Sound Community College Orchestra for performing 4 of my Gottschalk arrangements for the 2024 season.