The age-herald., 1898-08-14
THE LAST HOPE
 AT SANTIAGO

H. I Cleveland in Chicago Times Herald. Louis Moreau Gottschalk wrote his inn mortal "The Last Hope in Santiago. Originally an improvisation, the compost tion was subsequently, penned by him and became a. part of the classical instrumental music of the world. An adaptation of it for the violin and the mandolin was made by Remenyi years after, but not until the Spanish musicians of Santiago had incor- porated it into the song literature of their cline and made it, as have other men and women, a part of their own lives. The average pianist American or otherwise) is not familiar with the work, since it is both difficult to read and interpret. But if ever man wrote himself into production of his own, this dreamy, passionate son of
 the south did when for a dying woman he
 evolved "The Last Hope"-called by him
 My Evening Prayer"
 Gottschalk was born in New Orleans long
 before the civil war divided the north and
 the south He was so completely a south
 ron that one enthusiastic admirer of his
 writing in 1858 of him said that '.the very
 breath of the magnolia was upon his lips"
 He was music inclined from his chldhood
 a romanicts possessed of a body excess
 lively charged with warm blood, poet, all
 that was impractical and ideal His father
 was a German Jew and his mother a cre-
 ole, a union of bloods in him, rare in it's re- suits. If the intermixture failed to give him a certain coarse strength of nature, seemingly essential for the development of the highest genius, sufficient sweetness and light of nature was bred into his being to make him a popular idol for years. Much that he wrote-his La Savane,' 70 forgotten save by the few who dig for the treasures of a past day, but in ante bellum days Gottschalk was musical power in this country and abroad. But the war marked the eclipse of his powers and when he died in 1869 a new music, new order of composition, new nation was in the swing, and his adullants of 1859 had become the carping critics of the new age.
 He studied the piano with Helle in Paris and Camille Stamatz. Maleden was his | master in harmony. His intimate friend | abroad was Hector Perloiz, and under his 1 directions he made his first public appear | ance in Paris in 1845. There followed eight years of travel in Switzerland and Spain, where through his concerts he acquired a | European reputation before returning to | his native land. He was tall and slender of | form. Wavy hair covered his forehead | His complexion was olive. His eyes, deep | and dark, shone like stars. A personal ap- pearance such as this captivated the cul- tured women who thronged his concerts and did much to advance him toward fame. | He played, as a rule, his own compositions. What they lacked in vigor and force he | covered by a dreaminess and sensuous | quality that appealed to the popular taste | He arrived in Boston in 1853, heralded as | the only premier of the piano or his age, | and in his first public concert there he | was almost carried from the stage by his rapturous audience The newspapers, for | getting the nativities of his father and | mother, teemed with glowing articles on the crowning of the first real American pi- | anist" to be produced. The Gottschalk style of wearing the hair, of lingering the | piano, of modulating the voice in conver- sation, all had craze in those days before | the ruin and desolation of civil war. Gotts- chalk went from Boston to New York and | then visited other American cities, in all of which he was received with acclaim. Strange assertion of critic of those times: "We shall never see his like again. Mastery of harmony such as he possesses can never come to mortal man again.
 Louis Moreau, thou art the beginning and the end.' -t5 Today his music is comparatively un- known. If occasionally revived it is only by those who would not wholly sever To- day from Yesterday. .S -r
 Gottschalk came to Santiago. His musi- cal tours led him into Mexico and South America. Then he visited Cuba, being pas- sionately fond of its climate. At Santiago he was received by the Spanish grandes with every honor. A nobility of Spain re-
 sided there at that time which our soldiers will find only traces Of now. Soldiers of fortune and fame and women of the proud
 est blood of Castle and Aragon made Sam
 tiago then a greater saaial center than