Byron Hanson: Tune in Coleridge-Taylor's 'Bamboula' same as in Gottschalk's work of same name

Louis Moreau Gottschalk

(Wikipedia)

  

Bamboula

Our friend Byron Hanson is Archivist at the Interlochen Center for the Arts in Interlochen, Michigan.  He writes in response to the Gramophone article on Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, which we excerpted recently:

In regard to the mention of Coleridge-Taylor's Bamboula introduced in orchestral performance by the NY Philharmonic in 1910:

Do we all recognize that, while C-T's composition has a personality of its own, the tune that is the basis of his piece is the same one that Louis Moreau Gottschalk published as "Bamboula, danse de nêgres, Op.2"  before 1850 and that figures prominently in Hershy Kay's 1951 ballet Cakewalk?

My understanding is that Gottschalk's sources are largely from the West Indies but I assume Coleridge-Taylor's would be solely from Africa. If that assumption is false, please advise!

Thanks for all the good information you continue to offer, day in and day out!

Best regards,

Byron Hanson

Archivist

Interlochen Center for the Arts

www.interlochen.org

Comments by email:

I suspect that Coleridge-Taylor and Gottschalk both had a Caribbean source for the Bamboula, particularly since CT's awareness of African music was second hand.  Note might be made of the book by S. Frederick Starr: Bamboula!; The life and times of Louis Moreau Gottschalk (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995 -- Gottschalk was undeniably this country's first music super star).  A fourth use of the tune appears in Henry F. Gilbert's The dance in the Place Congo, op. 15 (1908; rev. 1916), a ballet first performed at the Metropolitan Opera House (recorded in 1977 by Calvin Simmons conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic on New World Records NW-228).  Incidentally,  much of Gottschalk's biography has led some to think he was Black.  He was not.

Dominique-René de Lerma

http://www.CasaMusicaledeLerma.com

Thank you for this additional information, Dr. Lerma -- I believe I may have heard the Henry Gilbert music performed in Rochester in the early 1960s at one of Howard Hanson's American music festivals but I'm not sure! I need to hear more of Coleridge-Taylor's work, and the attention he is receiving with new recordings in this centennial year should provide the opportunity!

Byron Hanson
Archivist
Interlochen Center for the Arts
www.interlochen.org