This 1868 dazzler for piano & orchestra was probably written in Uruguay. Gottschalk was the first internationally famous American musician. He was never a deep composer, started out copying the flashy style of Liszt, and never progressed along with European musical trends. But he had a fine melodic gift and a particularly good ear for folk and popular music, and music of the various tropical countries and colonies he frequently toured. As such, he became the first significant composer to use African-American and Latin-American melodies and rhythms. The Grande Tarantelle is a kind of large-scale Italian scherzo, a perpetual motion of great energy and charm, so much so that one overlooks the absence of depth.

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