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Customer Reviews (3)

Notes of a Pianist; Gottschalk
This is a great account of what it was like to be the first concert pianist in America.Since Gottschalk was performing during the Civil War and his comments and commentary on life as it was then are priceless.He is truly an American original.More people should take the time to discover this lost piece of Americana.

Fascinating look at American History from the pen of a Musical Genius
This is a great book!Gottschalk was a truly gifted individual and ahead of his time in many ways.It is so nice that he kept a journal and it is also wonderful that this material has been published.This is very good reading and will appeal to many different tastes.

Notes of an American Original
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was sometimes called the American Chopin, or the Chopin of the Creoles.He wasn't.His music, mostly piano pieces, is by turns jovial, stormy, sentimental, or lachrymose, and is a surprising blend of European, African-American, and Latin music, with plenty of quotations from American national ballads thrown in.It isn't superficial, but its appeal is frank and obvious, which is perhaps why he isn't heard often these days.If his works are absent from concert performances now, they can easily be found in recordings, and they are worth listening to.His pieces were enormously popular at the time around the Civil War.People bought his sheet music if they could not hear him.To hear him, they often did not have to go far out of their way, because Gottschalk traveled all over to give solo concerts or to organize concerts by others (sometimes Monster Concerts of 650 musicians).He was wildly popular, mostly because he worked hard to be, but he caught on as a matinee idol.It would be wonderful to hear him play; even those who objected to his compositions were amazed by his proficiency at the piano, and caricatures of him playing show hundreds of fingers flying over the keys.We can't hear him play, but we can read what he had to say about playing and about the life of a nineteenth century musical superstar in his collection of notes, diary entries, and articles that was first published eleven years after his death in 1869 and is now back in print._Notes of a Pianist: The Chronicles of a New Orleans Music Legend_ (Princeton University Press) is a delightful book.Gottschalk was masterful with words as well as with musical notes.

Gottschalk has given a funny and lively account of the travails of being an artist on the road (or rail or sea) even during war years; there are happy and frustrating encounters with the public, and stories of pleasure in performing well or doing good.He is a great complainer, often about people he sees or performs for.Another target is the pianos he has to put up with; in Panama, "The audience appears to be charmed, while I am playing on a cottage piano that I suspect was the product of an illicit union between a jew's-harp and a large kettle."But this is not the account of a peevish man; more than once he says of an annoyance something like "These things are amusing and break the monotony of our existence."He also has many times to report that in a certain concert every piece was encored, that the crowd was enthusiastic, that he has been given jeweled laurels, or a bouquet "not less than four feet in circumference."He is amused by misprints on his own playbills, and by newspaper reports of his death."I wish to speak of my death.This sad event took place at Santiago three months ago.I was carried off in three days by a frightful attack of black vomit; it is the newspaper _Savana la Grande_ that tells it; but the _Revue de Villa Clara_, without doubt better informed, makes me succumb to an aneurism of the heart, which I much prefer, the aneurism being much more poetical than the black vomit."

A journal is a perfect place for an author to record the foibles of others and of himself, but readers will find here remarkable descriptions of such problems as using the train during a time of war and having to share it with Union soldiers who are wounded or who are boisterously rude.Embarking for Norfolk, he has to pledge an oath of allegiance to the government.He was at sea off Acapulco when the captain of another steamer boarded with news, "... words like thunderbolts: 'Richmond is taken,' 'Lee has surrendered,''Lincoln has been assassinated'."He had personally played for the president years before, noting, "Lincoln is remarkably ugly, but has an intelligent air, and his eyes have a remarkable expression of goodness and mildness."He reports from the middle of a battle for Lima in a revolt in 1865.Gottschalk had an amazing life, generously shared here in one amusing and surprising page after another.He possessed enormous talents to entertain, within the concert hall and on the printed page.If you don't know his music, read his book, and then listen to, say, the merry and moving symphonic _A Night in the Tropics_.I think you'll be hooked. ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Isabelle Adjani, Catherine Deneuve, Isabelle Huppert, Marion Cotillard, Jeanne Moreau, Nathalie Baye, Dominique Blanc, Emmanuelle Devos, Marina Hands, Yolande Moreau, Sabine Azéma. Excerpt:Catherine Deneuve Catherine Deneuve (French IPA: , born 22 October 1943) is a French actress. She gained recognition for her portrayal of aloof, mysterious beauties for various directors, including Luis Buñuel and Roman Polanski . Deneuve won two César Awards for her performances in Le Dernier Métro (1980) and Indochine (1992). She has also received BAFTA and Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. In 2008, she appeared in her 100th film, Un conte de Noël . Early life and film career Deneuve was born Catherine Fabienne Dorléac in Paris , as the third of four daughters to French stage and screen actor Maurice Dorléac and actress Renée Deneuve. Deneuve made her film debut with a small role in Les Collégiennes (1957), subsequently working in several films including under director Roger Vadim . The film that brought her to stardom was Jacques Demy 's 1964 musical Les Parapluies de Cherbourg , which led to additional prominent roles in Roman Polanski 's Repulsion (1965) and Luis Buñuel 's Belle de Jour (1967). In the Polanski film, Deneuve first portrayed the character archetype for which she would be nicknamed the "ice maiden", an emotionally distant and mysterious woman; her work for Buñuel would be her most famous. She also appeared in Jacques Demy 's musical Les Demoiselles de Rochefort (1967), with her elder sister, Françoise Dorléac . Deneuve remained active in European films during the 1960s and the 1970s, though she limited her appearances in American movies of the period to The April Fools (1969) and Hustle (1975). Her starring roles at the time were featured in such films as Tristan... ... Read more

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Words by Norman Newell. Music by riz Ortolani. Starring Ingrid Bergman, Rex Harrison, Alain Delon, George C. Scott, Jeanne Moreau, Omar Sharif, Shirley MacLaine. ... Read more

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Photographer Marina Cicogna is the granddaughter of Count Volpi, who established the first Libyan film festival in 1932. Countess Marina grew up surrounded by stars and, in 1967, became a film producer with Indagine su un cittadino al di sopra di ogni sospetto and La classe operaia va in paradiso. The success of these two films marked the beginning of a long list of productions including Medea, C'era una volta il West and Una stagione in inferno. This book accompanies an exhibition, designed by Dante Ferretti, which was staged in Rome's Villa Medici. A play on opulence and theatricality, Scritti e Scatti is comprised of approximately 80 candid black-and-white portrait shots of international celebrities from the golden days of the Dolce Vita: David Niven, Audrey Hepburn, Maria Callas, Charlie Chaplin, Jeanne Moreau, Cecil Beaton, Henry Fonda, Terence Stamp, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rex Harrison, Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, Monica Vitti and many others. "I wanted to find, through the photographs I had taken, the faces, the attitudes, landscapes that don't exist anymore, tokens of a time when all that is extraordinary seemed to us normal and everylasting," writes Cicogna in the preface to this book, which conveys the flavor of Cicogna's relationships with her subjects. In addition to Cicogna's own memoirs of the portraits, Scritti e Scatti includes recollections by friends such as Jeanne Moreau and Calvin Klein. ... Read more

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Published to coincide with Jeanne Moreau's Golden Bear award at the Internationale Filmfestspiele in Berlin 2000, this book celebrates the event and is a tribute to her life's work, It also includes a biography and filmography. ... Read more

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A nice collection of nine 8" x 10" b&w scene stills & portrait photographs from various films that starred the great French actress Jeanne Moreau. All are from the original American releases. The collection includes 1 scene still from "The Lovers" with Moreau and Jean-Marc Bory in a rowboat, 3 stills from Louis Malle's "Bay Of Angels" including 1 portrait, 2 lovely portraits of her from "The Immortal Story" 1 of her and Marcello Mastroianni from "La Notte", 1 portrait of her from "Jules And Jim" & 1 portrait of her from "Going Places." Sold as a collection only. Fine. ... Read more