In response to H. Wiley Hitchcock's "Ivesiana: The Gottschalk Connection" (I.S.A.M. Newsletter 15, November 1985), a more thorough treatment of the quotation in Ives's Psalm 90 from Gottschalk's The Last Hope is offered. A hymn setting of Gottschalk's The Last Hope was made in 1866 by the Gottschalk-enthusiast Hubert Platt Main. Alternately titled Gottschalk or Mercy, the hymn is often credited to Edwin Pond Parker and mistakenly dated to 1880. Main's use of The Last Hope, a Gottschalk signature-piece, as a hymn may have been motivated by an infamous incident in 1866 involving Gottschalk and the honor of two young women in San Francisco. In this context, the hymn Gottschalk serves as a confession for the unrepentant pianist. Both George and Charles Ives knew the hymn, and the quotation in Psalm 90 most likely refers directly to it and not to Gottschalk's piece.

Index Classifications: 1800s, 1900s

Contributed by: Elizabeth Bergman