Although pioneering American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk's later travels to the West Indies would inspire a large body of imaginatively exotic piano works, Le Mancenillier (composed in 1849 while Gottschalk was in Europe) seems to have drawn its inspiration primarily from the composer's readings and his imagination. In fact, while one of the piece's main melodies hails from Saint Dominigue, scholar John Doyle traced other melodies in the piece to Gottschalk's native New Orleans. The title refers to a tree that thrives in the Caribbean and bears fruit both beautiful and poisonous—commonly invoked as a poetic symbol of the perils of love. Gottschalk's biographer S.F. Starr read further into the title, discovering in the piece a programmatic depiction of the romantic poem "Le Mancenillier" by Charles-Hubert Millevoye. The piece's opening tune, on the Caribbean song "Chanson de Lizette," is slightly portentous in its minor mode and restrained melodic arc. A steady accompanimental pattern enters, its rigid rhythm setting off the gentle flow, simple shape, and modest adornments of the melody. Likewise, the foursquare scansion of the phrases and the restrained expressive breadth of the main melody and relentless chordal accompaniment serve to contrast occasional virtuosic flourishes in which the treble voice suddenly doubles its pace and surges up and down the keyboard. As the piece progresses, introducing in turn Gottschalk's adaptations of the Creole tunes "Ou som souroucou" and "Ma mourri," the right hand's excursions become more dramatic and uninhibited in their virtuosity. Finally, the work nearing its close, the pianist's flashy runs and rhapsodic diversions take a central, rather than peripheral position, culminating in showy Chopinesque flourishes. Performers should note that Le Mancenillier exists in multiple versions; only editions based on the first European printing contain the impressive extended coda. That ending is absent from the later American edition, which is also distinguished from the original by its alternate title "West Indian Serenade."

© Jeremy Grimshaw, Rovi