January 21 — Celebrate MLK Day with “The Black Mozart”
Imagine an 18th century combination of Michael Jordan, Prince, Muhammed Ali, Colin Powell and Cornell West … that was Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, pre-Revolutionary France’s greatest swordsman and equestrian, and one of its finest musicians and composers. UIndy celebrates Martin Luther King’s birthday by performing his music along with other other composers of African descent.
When: Monday, January 21 7:30 PM
Where: University of Indianapolis Christel DeHaan Fine Arts Center, Ruth Lilly Performance Hall
As part of UIndy’s Martin Luther King Day festivities, Mitzi Westra and guest Derrick Pennix perform music of African American composers Turner Layton, John Work, and William Grant Still; Rebecca Sorley plays an arrangement of “Wade in the Water” for piano solo; Byron Plexico and Tom Gerber team for a duo sonata by the 18th-century French Caribbean composer Joseph Boulogne Saint-Georges; Harry Miedema and friends highlight the jazz experience.
Mitzi Westra, mezzo-soprano; Derrick Pennix, piano; Rebecca Sorley, piano; Byron Plexico, violin; Thomas Gerber, harpsichord; Harry Miedema, tenor saxophone, and friends
A few words about the extraordinary Joseph Bologne Saint-Georges, a real person who seems to have stepped out of a swashbuckling novel. Say the good “people” at Wikipedia:
Joseph Bologne was a mulatto born out-of-wedlock in Guadeloupe to Nanon, a former slave of black African descent, and a white French plantation owner of noble birth, Georges Bologne de Saint-Georges. The child was named Joseph. At the age of ten he accompanied his father to France and was enrolled in a private academy. Schooled in both the fine and martial arts, he soon distinguished himself by his extraordinary skill on horseback, in sports, fencing, and music.
While still a young man, he acquired multiple reputations; as the best swordsman in France, as a violin virtuoso, and as a composer in the classical tradition. While learning how to play the violin he received private instruction from such distinguished composers as Lolli and Gossec.
He composed and conducted for the private orchestra and theatre of the marquise de Montesson, the morganatic wife of the King’s cousin, Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. In 1771, he was appointed maestro of the Concert des Amateurs, and later director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, the biggest orchestra of his time (65-70 musicians). This orchestra commissioned Joseph Haydn to compose six symphonies (the “Paris Symphonies” Nr. 82-87), which Saint-Georges conducted for their world premiere. Renowned both for his skill as a composer and musician, he was selected for appointment as the director of the Royal Opera of Louis XVI. But this was prevented by three Parisian divas who petitioned the King in writing against the appointment, insisting that it would be beneath their dignity and injurious to their professional reputations for them to sing on stage under the direction of a “mulatto”.
Thwarted in his musical career, Saint-Georges earned fresh renown as a competitive fencer. He had already been dubbed “chevalier” by appreciative crowds at the Palais Royal. There is a famous portrait of him crossing swords in an exhibition match with the daring transvestite spy, the chevalière d’Eon, in the presence of George of Hanover, the Prince of Wales and Britain’s future king.
Although the son of a nobleman and accustomed to life among the aristocracy of the court at Versailles, Saint-Georges served honourably in the army of the Revolution against France’s foreign enemies, although he is not known to have joined the domestic revolutionary struggle prior to the imprisonment of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. He was appointed the first black colonel of the French army, and commanded a regiment of men of colour volunteers, largely consisting of former slaves from the region of his birth. Repeatedly denounced, however, because of his aristocratic parentage and past association with the royal court, he was later expelled from the army, arrested, and died destitute in Paris in 1799.
You can get a more thorough biography of Saint-Georges at AfriClassical.com, or even better, read the excellent biography by Gabriel Banat, The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow. It may be stretching to call him “The Black Mozart” — in the style of most of the music composed in Paris in the second half of the 18th century, his work is pleasant and very listenable, but not very deep. Getting to hear it performed at the University of Indianapolis will definitely be a treat.
January 1st, 2008 at 11:18 pm
[…] January 21 — Celebrate MLK Day with “The Black Mozart” Imagine an 18th century combination of Michael Jordan, Prince, Muhammed Ali, Colin Powell and Cornell West … that was Joseph Bologne, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, pre-Revolutionary France’s greatest swordsman and equestrian, and one of its finest musicians and composers. UIndy celebrates Martin Luther King’s birthday by performing his music along with other other composers of African descent. check it out […]