rica he had an active and dangerous
rival in the young and brilliant pianist, Louis Moreau Gottschalk,
who was as fresh to New York audiences as Thalberg himself, though the
latter had the advantage over his young competitor in a fame which
was almost world-wide. Of American pianists Louis Gottschalk stands
confessedly at the head by virtue of remarkable native gifts, which, had
they been assisted by greater industry and ambition, might easily have
won him a very eminent rank in Europe as well as in his own country. An
easy, pleasure-loving, tropical nature, flexible, facile, and disposed
to sacrifice the future to the present, was the only obstacle to the
attainment to a place level with the foremost artists of his age.

Edward Gottschalk, who came to America in his young manhood and settled
in New Orleans, and his wife, a French Creole lady, had five children,
of whom the future pianist was the eldest, born in 1829. His feeling for
music manifested itself when he was three years old by his ability to
play a melody on the piano which he had heard. Instantly he was strong
enough, he was placed under the instruction of a good teacher, and no
pains were spared to develop his precocious talent. At the age of six he
had made such progress on the piano that he was also instructed on
the violin, and soon was able to play pieces of more than ordinary
difficulty with taste and expression. We are told that the lad gave
a benefit concert at the age of eight to assist an unfortunate
violin-player, with considerable success, and was soon in great request
at evening parties as a child phenomenon. The propriety of sending
the little Louis to Paris had long been discussed, and it was finally
accomplished in 1842.

On reaching Paris he was first put under the teaching of Charles Halle,
but, as the latter master was a little careless, he was replaced by M.
Camille Stamaty, who had the reputation of being the ablest professor
in the city. The following year he began the study of harmony and
counterpoint with M. Malidan, and the rapid progress he evinced in his
studies was of a kind to justify his parents in their wish to devote him
to the career of a pianist.

Young Louis Gottschalk was much petted in the aristocratic salons of
Paris, to which he had admission through his aunts, the Comtesse de
Lagrange and the Comtesse de Bourjally. His remarkable musical gifts,
and more especially his talent for improvisation, excited curiosity and