Souvenir de Porto Rico, marche des gibaros, Op. 31, was written at a sugar plantation located outside the village of Barceloneta, Puerto Rico, in the fall of 1857. Pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk, singer Adelina Patti, and Patti's father were taking a vacation from their concert schedule. While the Pattis would return to their touring life after about a month, Gottschalk remianed in the Caribbean for nearly five years, absorbing the music around him and composing practically nonstop.

The "Gibaros" in the title were farmers who tilled the land in the interior of Puerto Rico. In this work, strolling musicians are heard marching as if from the distance; as they approach, the main tune is sounded in the middle register of the piano. It is a traditional Puerto Rican song, "Si me dan pasteles, dénmelos calientes" (If You Give Me Cakes, Give Me Hot Ones"), that is heard in the streets around Christmastime. This is juxtaposed with a simple progression that gets more elaborate as the two strains are put through a series of eight variations. Midway through the sixth variation, Gottschalk breaks into a modulation to a new key, syncopating this section in a manner that strongly suggests the swinging rhythm of ragtime or tango music. At the time Gottschalk lived in Puerto Rico, 37 percent of the island's population was made up of Afro-Caribbean slaves. Though many of his works incorporate African American rhythms, Souvenir de Porto Rico is as close as Gottschalk came to something that sounds like jazz. After the climax is reached, Gottschalk lowers the music back down to where it started, and the Gibaros march away into the distance.

Gottschalk left behind his impressions of the surroundings that produced Souvenir de Porto Rico in his own words: "[I was] perched upon the edge of a crater, [and] my cabin overlooked the whole country. Every evening I moved my piano out upon the terrace, and played for myself alone, everything that the scene opened up before me inspired. It was there that I composed 'Marche des Gibaros.'"

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