Chevalier de Saint-Georges
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges(December 25, 1745 – June 10, 1799), was a FrenchCreolevirtuoso violinist and composer, who was conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris.
Saint-Georges was born in the then French colony ofGuadeloupe, the son of Georges de Bologne Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and an enslaved African woman named Nanon. At the age of seven he was taken to France, and at the age of thirteen educated asgendarmeto the King. He received music lessons from François-Joseph Gossec and likely violin lessons from Jean-Marie Leclair, while continuing to study fencing.
In 1764 Antonio Lolli dedicated two concertos to Saint-Georges. In 1769 he joined a new symphony orchestra; two years later he was appointed concert master and soon started composing. In 1773 he was appointed conductor of "Le Concert des Amateurs". In 1775 he introduced the symphonie concertante, using the possibilities offered by a newbow. In 1776 he was proposed as the next conductor of the Paris Opera, but was subsequently denied this role by a petition by the divas of the time to the Queen. This then put an end to any aspirations that Saint-Georges had to becoming the music director of the institution. In 1778 he lived for 2.5 months next to Mozart in the Chaussee d'Antinand stopped composing instrumental works in 1785. He knew many composers, including Salieri,Gossec,Gretry,Mozart and Gluck. He commissioned and performed the Paris Symphonies by Haydn and travelled to London where he met with the Prince of Wales and George IIIin 1787.
Following the 1789 outbreak of the French Revolution, the younger Saint-Georges served as a colonel of the LĂ©gion St.-Georges(established in 1792), the first all-African regiment in Europe, fighting on the side of the French First Republic. Today the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is best remembered as the first well-known classical composer of African ancestry. He composed numerous string quartets and other instrumental pieces, violin concertos as well as operas. Ludwig van Beethoven held his music and his views very highly.
Joseph Bologne was born in Baillif, Basse-Terre as the son of a planter and former councilor at the parliament of Metz, Georges de Bologne Saint-Georges (1711–1774) and Nanon, his wife's 16-year-old enslaved African servant of Senegalese origin, who served as her personal maid. Bologne was legally married to Elisabeth Mérican (1722–1801) but acknowledged his son by Nanon and gave him his surname
Starting in the 17th century, a Code Noir had been law in France and its colonial possessions. On April 5, 1762, King Louis XV decreed that "Nègres et gens de couleur" (Africans and people of color) must register with the clerk of the Admiralty within two months. Many leading Enlightenment thinkers like Voltaire argued that Africans and their descendants were inferior to White Europeans. These laws and racist attitudes towards mixed-race people made it impossible for Joseph Bologne to marry anybody at his level of society, though he did have at least one serious romantic relationship.
Nothing is known about Saint-Georges' early musical training. Given his prodigious technique as an adult, Saint-Georges must have practiced the violin seriously as a child. There has been no documentation found of him as a musician before 1764, when violinistAntonio Lollicomposed two concertos, Op. 2, for him,[note 1]and 1766, when composerFrançois-Joseph Gossecdedicated a set of six string trios, Op. 9,to Saint Georges. Lolli may have worked with Bologne on his violin technique and Gossec on compositions.
(Beauvoir's novel says that "Platon", a fictional whip-toting slave commander onSaint-Domingue, "taught little Saint-Georges" the violin.[note 2])
Historians have discountedFrançois-Joseph Fétis' claim that Saint-Georges studied violin withJean-Marie Leclair. Some of his technique was said to reveal influence byPierre Gaviniès. Other composers who later dedicated works to Saint-Georges wereCarl Stamitzin 1770, and Avolio in 1778.
In 1769, the Parisian public was amazed to see Saint-Georges, the great fencer, playing as a violinist in Gossec's new orchestra,Le Concert des Amateurs. Four years later he became its concertmaster/conductor. In 1772 Saint-Georges created a sensation with his debut as a soloist, playing his first two violin concertos, Op. II, with Gossec conducting the orchestra. "These concertos were performed last winter at a concert of theAmateursby the author himself, who received great applause as much for their performance as for their composition." According to another source, "The celebrated Saint-Georges,mulatto fencer [and] violinist, created a sensation in Paris ... [when] two years later ... at theConcert Spirituel, he was appreciated not as much for his compositions as for his performances, enrapturing especially the feminine members of his audience."
Young Saint-Georges in 1768, aged 22. The three roses on his lapel were a Masonic symbol.
Saint-Georges's first compositions, Op. I, were a set of six string quartets, among the first in France, published by famed French publisher, composer, and teacherAntoine Bailleux. They were inspired byHaydn's earliest quartets, brought from Vienna by Baron Bagge. Saint-Georges wrote two more sets of six string quartets, threeforte-pianoand violin sonatas, a sonata for harp and flute, and six violin duets. The music for three other known compositions was lost: a cello sonata, performed in Lille in 1792, a concerto for clarinet, and one for bassoon.
Saint-Georges wrote twelve additional violin concertos, two symphonies, and eightsymphonie-concertantes, a new, intrinsically Parisian genre of which he was one of the chief exponents. He wrote his instrumental works over a short span of time, and they were published between 1771 and 1779. He also wrote sixopéras comiquesand a number of songs in manuscript.
In 1773, when Gossec took over the direction of the prestigiousConcert Spirituel, he designated Saint-Georges as his successor as director of theConcert des Amateurs. After fewer than two years under the younger man's direction, the group was described[by whom?]as "Performing with great precision and delicate nuances [and] became the best orchestra for symphonies in Paris, and perhaps in all of Europe."
Palais de Soubise, venue of Saint-Georges' orchestra
In 1781, Saint Georges'sConcert des Amateurshad to be disbanded due to a lack of funding. Playwright andSecret du RoispyPierre Caron de Beaumarchaisbegan to collect funds from private contributors, including many of theConcert'spatrons, to sendmaterielaid for the American cause. The plan to send military aid via a fleet of fifty vessels and have those vessels return withAmerican rice, cotton, or tobacco ended up bankrupting the French contributors as theAmerican congressfailed to acknowledge its debt and the ships were sent back empty. Saint-Georges turned to his friend and admirer,Philippe D'Orléans, duc de Chartres, for help. In 1773 at the age of 26, Philippe had been elected Grand Master of the 'Grand Orient de France' after uniting all the Masonic organizations in France. Responding to Saint-Georges's plea, Philippe revived the orchestra as part of theLoge Olympique, an exclusive Freemason Lodge.
RenamedLe Concert Olympique, with practically the same personnel, it performed in the grand salon of thePalais Royal. In 1785, Count D'Ogny, grand master of the Lodge and a member of its cello section, authorized Saint-Georges to commissionHaydnto composesix new symphoniesfor the Concert Olympique. Conducted by Saint-Georges, Haydn's "Paris" symphonies were first performed at the Salle desGardes-Suissesof theTuileries, a much larger hall, in order to accommodate the huge public demand to hear Haydn's new works. QueenMarie Antoinetteattended some of Saint-Georges's concerts at the Palais de Soubise, arriving sometimes without notice, so the orchestra wore court attire for all its performances. "Dressed in rich velvet or damask with gold or silver braid and fine lace on their cuffs and collars and with their parade swords and plumed hats placed next to them on their benches, the combined effect was as pleasing to the eye as it was flattering to the ear." Saint-Georges played all his violin concertos as soloist with his orchestra.
