This portrait of Louis Moreau Gottschalk appeared on the cover of his compositions published by Oliver Ditson & Co. in Boston and sold by L. Grunewald Co. locally. Among the French titles in the Ditson inventory were Bamboula, Pasquinade, Dernier Amour, and Marche de Nuit. [Louisiana Division Early Sheet Music Collection]
Some of Gottschalk's compositions from this period are most startling, notably the jaunty Pasquinade (The
Clown). While the first record of its performance dates only to 1863, this sparkling gavotte almost certainly relates to
this same happy post-festival phase of the composer's life in Havana. Pasquinade (op. 59) has often been
credited with being a forward-looking anticipation of ragtime and jazz. [p. 295]
Ojos criollos (op. 37), written in Saint-Pierre and labeled a Danse Cubaine, is a pure contradanza arranged for
two or four hands. Its rhythmic pattern presages that of many American cakewalks, including the evergreen At a
Georgia Camp Meeting. It also contains an intriguing offbeat passage that directly anticipates jazz of the 1920s. [p.
284]
It was Edward Gottschalk who pushed Moreau to excel in music. For this purpose he engaged F.J. Narcisse Letellier, a
tenor at the Theatre d'Orleans, composer, and in his spare time a "professor of music." A Parisian with family still in the
French capital, Letellier brought his young piano student along rapidly. [p. 34]