My Charmer, spare me! song by Louis Moreau Gottschalk

Posted on February 27, 2013 by admin

Published on Jan 28, 2013

Baritone George Spitzer performs Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s 1861 song, My Charmer, spare me! accompanied by pianist Artis Wodehouse live in concert presented by MELODEON chamber ensemble on 1/6/13 at Church of the Epiphany, NYC. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) is well-known as a writer of piano music influenced by his New Orleans heritage and upbringing. Though white, he absorbed the Afro-Creole melodies and exotic rhythms from the Caribbean basin so prominent in New Orleans culture. These found their way into his many piano compositions. He is less well-known for his songs. My charmer has a Latin tinge, and the piano accompaniment is reminiscent of the guitar.

MELODEON is a chamber group founded by Artis Wodehouse for the performance of 19th and early 20th Century American music.

Sound recordist and videographer is Whitney Slaten.

About admin

Pianist and harmoniumist ARTIS WODEHOUSE has devoted her careeer to preserving and disseminating neglected but valuable music and instruments from the past, with an emphasis on American music. Cited by the NYTimes as “savior of the old and neglected”, she received a National Endowment grant that propelled her into production of CDs and published transcriptions of recorded performances and piano rolls made by George Gershwin, Jelly Roll Morton and Zez Confrey. Her best-seller, “Gershwin Plays Gershwin”, on the Nonesuch label has sold over 500,000 copies. Beginning in 2000, Wodehouse began performing on a representative group of antique reed organs and harmoniums, toy pianos and an 1823 English square piano and an 1860 Steinway square piano that she had painstakingly restored and brought to concert condition. She founded the chamber group MELODEON in 2010 to present little known but valuable music from 19th and early 20th Century America, using her antique instrument collection as the basis for repertoire choice. Wodehouse has a BM from the Manhattan School of Music, an MM from Yale, and a DMA from Stanford.
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