“Well, at the concert, which, by the way, did not half fill the Boston Music Hall, owing partly, we believe, to the one-dollar price, and partly, we hope, to distrust of an artist who plays wholly his own compositions, our expectation was confirmed.  There was, indeed, most brilliant execution; we have heard none more brilliant, but are not yet prepared to say that Jaell’s was less so.  Gottschalk’s touch is the most clear and crisp and beautiful that we have ever known.  His play is free and bold and sure, and graceful in the extreme; his runs pure and liquid; his figures always clean and perfectly denned; his command of rapid octave passages prodigious; and so we might go through with all the technical points of masterly execution.  It was great execution.  But what is execution, without some thought and meaning in the combinations to be executed?...  Skillful, graceful, brilliant, wonderful, we own his playing was.  But players less wonderful have given us far deeper satisfaction.  We have seen a criticism upon that concert, in which it was regretted that his music was too fine for common apprehension, ‘too much addressed to the reasoning faculties,’ etc.  To us the want was, that it did not address the reason; that it seemed empty of ideas, of inspiration; that it spake little to the mind or heart, excited neither meditation nor emotion, but simply dazzled by the display of difficult feats gracefully and easily achieved.  But of what use were all these difficulties? (’Difficult!  I wish it was impossible,’ said Dr. Johnson.) Why all that rapid tossing of handfuls of chords from the middle to the highest octaves, lifting the hand with such conscious appeal to our eyes?  To what end all those rapid octave passages? since in the intervals of easy execution, in the seemingly quiet impromptu passages, the music grew so monotonous and commonplace:  the same little figure repeated and repeated, after listless pauses, in a way which conveyed no meaning, no sense of musical progress, but only the appearance of fastidiously critical scale-practicing.”

In the series of concerts given by Gottschalk throughout the United States, the public generally showed great enthusiasm and admiration, and the young pianist sustained himself very successfully against the memories of Jaell, Henri Herz, and Leopold de Meyer, as well as the immediate rivalry of Thalberg, who appealed more potently to a select few.  The hold the American pianist had secured on his public did not lessen during the five years of concert-giving which succeeded.  No player ever displayed his skill before American audiences who had in so large degree that peculiar quality of geniality in his style which so endears him to the public.  This characteristic is something apart from genius or technical skill, and is peculiarly an emanation from the personality of the man.