Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American original. A spellbinding piano virtuoso, he was America's first internationally recognized composer, whose "classical" works received accolades from Hector Berlioz and Victor Hugo, and whose arch-romantic melodies became for Americans the standard expressions of common emotions. Perhaps most important, his immensely popular Louisiana and Caribbean pieces--such as Danza, Pasquinade, or Bamboula--anticipated ragtime...