Clara Gottschalk Peterson (1837–1910) was an American pianist, composer, and editor. She was the sister of virtuoso pianist

Louis Moreau Gottschalk Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869) was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works. He spent most of his working career outside the United States. Life and care ...

, editing a collection of his writings and working to preserve his memory after his death. She is remembered as "a staunch protector of her brother's music in its original form", as well as "a composer of considerable ability" in her own right.

Early life

Clara Gottschalk was born in 1837 in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

, one of the seven children of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

-born Edward Gottschalk and Aimée (née Bruslé). The Gottschalk and Bruslé families were slave owners, and the children were raised in part by a nurse named Sally, who the Bruslés had taken with them as chattel from

Saint-Domingue Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to ref ...

, and from whom they heard Creole legends and lullabies. Their maternal grandmother was also from Saint-Domingue, and between the two women its music "was a constant and vital presence in the Gottschalks' family circle". In 1847, Aimée left her husband and moved with six of the children to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

, where Louis Moreau was already studying music. Aimée was "reputed to have believed that all the Gottschalk children would be musically gifted", and although not all of them went on to be as acclaimed as Louis Moreau, "all did perform publicly and/ or compose at one time or another". The youngest brother, Louis Gaston Gottschalk (1845–1912), was an eminent opera singer and vocal teacher. Clara and Blanche were both professional pianists, and Celestine and Augusta also performed.

Marriage and ''Notes of a Pianist''

In 1880, Clara Gottschalk married Dr. Robert E. Peterson in

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

. In 1881, she published a collection of Louis Moreau's travel notes and diaries, entitled ''Notes of a Pianist,'' with "a long biographical preface gathering many testimonials and reviews from newspapers (all elogious)". It has been speculated that Clara may have bowdlerised her brother's writings in efforts to preserve his reputation. However, it is generally accepted that her reliance on published versions of the gathered texts means that omissions were Louis Moreau's, rather than hers. In his biography of Louis Moreau Gottschalk,

S. Frederick Starr Stephen Frederick Starr (born March 24, 1940) is an American expert on Russian and Eurasian affairs, a musician, and a former president of Oberlin College. Founder and chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, he is fluent in Russian and ...

argued that:

The one major flaw in her edition of the ''Notes'' is that the English translation by her husband, Robert E. Peterson, is an appallingly anaemic rendering of Gottschalk's pungent French prose.

He adds that Clara's work "enabled the public to peer behind the mask of aloofness that Gottschalk invariably wore before the public", revealing him to be "an ironic commentator on everything from politics to religion". Clara assumed responsibility for memorialising her brother, and "for the rest of her life campaigned to confirm her brother's standing as the bard of Creole New Orleans":

It was she who encouraged a drab New Orleans insurance man, William H. Hawes, to collect every scrap of Gottschalk memorabilia and present them to the City of New Orleans. The bewildered mayor had to endure endless visits from Hawes, who doggedly checked to make sure that Gottschalk's bust was displayed prominently in City Hall.

''Creole Songs''

In 1902, Clara published ''Creole Songs from New Orleans in the Negro Dialect.'' Transcribed from memory, she stated in the collection's introduction that:

Dr. Dvořák has claimed that there is in time to be a native school of American music based upon the primitive musical utterances of the Indian and the negro among us. Then truly these melodies of the Louisiana negroes, which, quaintly merry or full of a very tender pathos, have served to rock whole generations of Southern children, are historical documents of some interest to the student and lover of music.

The influence of the songs gathered by Clara on Louis Moreau Gottschalk's compositions was also noted, with some being based on them directly.

Death

Clara Gottschalk Peterson died at her home in

Asbury Park, New Jersey Asbury Park () is a beachfront city located on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 15,188

on 25 July 1910.

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

noted that her house had been:

for many years the gathering place of Asbury Park's musicians, and even during the past Winter, despite her failing health, she gave musicales at which she played her brother's compositions.

She was survived by two step-children and her sister, Celestine Gottschalk, with whom she had lived for a number of years.

References

External links

* ''Notes of a Pianist'' at

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, software applications/games, music ...

''Creole songs from New Orleans in the Negro-dialect, set to music by Clara Gottschalk Peterson''
at

HathiTrust HathiTrust Digital Library is a large-scale collaborative repository of digital content from research libraries including content digitized via Google Books and the Internet Archive digitization initiatives, as well as content digitized locally ...

(US access only) * Track listing for ''Creole Songs'' at the

International Music Score Library Project The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a subscription-based digital library of public-domain music scores. The project, which uses MediaWiki softwar ...