I've wanted to participate in this discussion of Gottschalk, one of the
most significant pre-Gershwin composers.

But I have hesitated because I feel that my feelings/thoughts/
perceptions/values will be perceived as revisionist or libelous.
I am not a Ph.D.. candidate trying to defend my dissertation.  I am
just a musician who thinks that Gottschalk was ahead of his time.
Therefore, evidence, citations, quotes, or other factual back-up are
not relevant to my belief that Gottschalk was the spiritual father of
ragtime music.

Gottschalk was one of the few American composers to be accepted by
European aristocracy.  His syncopations and progressive musical styling
pleased conservative symphony-goers (which gained him widespread
audiences) His uniquely American style was "just" European enough to
satisfy stuffy aristocrats, yet his fresh style and arrangements paved
the way for the emergence of ragtime.  I can't prove he was the father
of ragtime, but no one existed before him whose music so closely
resembled ragtime.

I can't be sure if Scott Joplin ever heard Gottschalk.  From what
I've read about Joplin, he attributed his musical influences to other
composers of his day.  Whether these contemporaries took their cues
from Gottschalk or not is not clear to me, but they probably did,
because that's the way music evolves.  If Joplin was indeed inspired
by Gottschalk, it probably would have been similar to the way current
country music legend Garth Brooks got his cues from Elvis Presley, or
how the Beatles may have received inspiration from Glenn Miller's Big
Bands.  Sure, one could be traced to the other, but only with
intermediate musical evolutions.

These are my opinions based on extensive education, musical skill,
understanding of the evolution of ragtime music, proficiency at rag-
time performance and arrangement, rational observations, reasonably
accurate historical information and logical conclusions.  I don't have
evidence or hard facts at the ready, but I assure members of this
seemingly litigious list that I am not a revisionist biographer bent
on rewriting history.  I just love music.

Hence, I believe that Gottschalk was the father of ragtime.

John Carington
Chesterton, Indiana
Curator: The Lowrey Symphonizer Collection

 [ Editor's note:
 [
 [ John, thanks for sharing your belief, and thanks for identifying
 [ it as a belief.  Nothing wrong with that.  Ed Berlin is simply a
 [ researcher of history who is trying to find substantiation, and his
 [ approach is as thorough (and sceptical) as an archaeologist's.
 [
 [ I view the problem like this:  a fact of history may be established
 [ by evidence which shows, with great certainty, that something
 [ happened.  For example, newspaper reports of eye-witness accounts
 [ are generally accepted evidence that an event really happened.
 [ Word-of-mouth stories and second-hand reports are less certain
 [ because speculation creeps in.
 [
 [ It is not a disgrace if one's opinions don't agree with another's
 [ opinions, and it's not libelous to disagree.  Opinions are welcome
 [ and so are discussions of possibilities.  Evidence of certainty is
 [ especially welcome.
 [
 [ -- Robbie