feuilleton now mingled its praises with those of the connoisseurs. Thalberg, who was present, grasping his hand, said, "Young man, I predict for you a future such as few men have yet seen."
"A young pianist," says a critic on this occasion, "of a most promising future, Mr. Gottschalk, whom the salons so readily received into their protection, has just performed publicly in the Salle Pleyel. Born upon the banks of the Mississippi, he seems to have brought to the Old World songs which he had gathered in the virgin forests of his country. Nothing can be more original, or more pleasing to the ear than the composition of this young Creole. Listen to the 'Bamboula,' and you will comprehend the poetry of a tropical clime. Gottschalk's execution is marvellous. He possesses a force, a grace, an abandonment which carry you away, in spite of yourself, and compel you to applaud like a mere claqueur. The piano is no longer the dry and monotonous instrument with which you were acquainted, and you will find springing from beneath the creative fingers of the artist all the timbres of the orchestra, tous les soupirs des instruments à vent."
"There is a scale like a string of pearls leading you back to the minor key! Oh! listen to that scale which flows so sweetly; it is not the hand of a man which touches the keys; it is the wing of a sylph that caresses them, and causes them to resound with the purest harmony."
The composition of 'Bamboula' was written under the following circumstances. After his mother's arrival Moreau was stricken down with typhoid fever. During the delirium which accompanies this fever, he was seen to wave his hands, which those around him supposed to be symptoms of the delirium; but during his convalescence, which was very slow, he one day got up and wrote out 'Bamboula,' which he said had been running in his brain during his illness. It is composed upon four bars of a negro melody, well known in Louisiana, and is considered one of the most remarkable, as it is one of the most difficult of execution, of all his compositions.
When he had sufficiently improved, he went to the Ardennes, for the full recovery of his health, and there composed the 'Danse des Ombres,' the name of which he
