Louis
Moreau Gottschalk: Evidence for the Dedication of Adieu funèbre
By Bridget Falconer-Salkeld
There was one star in the
still light sky, and when the sky got dark, that one was brighter than
the rest.
-Paul Bowles, "Call at Corazón" and Other Stories
The evening star must be drooping and shedding her sparkler dims on
the prairie, which is just before the coming of complete night that blesses
the earth, …
-Jack Kerouac, On the Road
Many of the works of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829–69) have been lost
due in part to his peripatetic life as a pianist. Although the manuscript
of Gottschalk's lost memorial Adieu funèbre (1859) is not
contained in either of the collections at Olana State Historic Site, Hudson,
and the McKinney Library, Albany Institute of History and Art, both in New
York State, there is evidence to suggest that it may be possible to attribute
the dedication of his memorial by a careful examination of contextual information.
To date the dedication has not been settled although there is informed speculation
in certain of the published authorities. With the groundwork already done,
the present writer's account of the research and its results acknowledges
and builds on the work of John G. Doyle, Robert Offergeld, James E. Perone,
and S. Frederick Starr. Adieu funèbre is not listed in John G.
Doyle's Catalog of Works, but is included in Robert Offergeld's
Centennial Catalogue, James E. Perone's Louis Moreau Gottschalk:
A Bio-Bibliography, and in S. Frederick Starr's Bamboula! The Life
and Times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The entry in the Centennial
Catalogue reads as follows:
Adieu funèbre,
pour violoncello et piano. Composed: LPU-105 gives 1859. Unlike the
1853–1854 Marches funèbre (CCat-147 et seq.),
this work does not seem to coincide with the known decease of any of LMG's
family or friends. LMG's mother died in Paris in 1856. His onetime pupil
and later close friend, Octavia Hensel (Mrs. Mary Alice Ives Seymour)
lost her only child, a year-old infant, late in 1859, an event for which
an Adieu might seem appropriate. But according to VL [Vernon
Loggins] (p. 178), LMG did not receive this news until January, 1860.
No publication known. Ms. wanting.
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