Home 
Black History Black Icons Joseph Boulogne – The Black Mozart
Black History Black Icons Joseph Boulogne – The Black Mozart
| Joseph Boulogne – The Black Mozart |
| Written by urbanlife.se |
| Wednesday, 10 June 2009 19:15 |
 Some men are born to become legends and one such man is Joseph Boulogne also known as Chevalier de Saint-Georges. 210 years since his death, the world seems to have forgotten this great Afro-French Composer, Violinist & Conductor who was also the best fencer in France and was a Colonel of the Black Legion. But today, on June 10th, 2009, his memories will be revived and brought back to life so that the world can know and feel the man behind the legend. Born on December 25, 1745 on a French-Caribbean island, Joseph Boulogne son of a minor aristocrat and his slave mistress, he spent the formative years of his childhood in Guadeloupe before moving to Paris. Boissière, a great master of arms taught Joseph the art of fencing. He became a great swordsman and was challenged by many across the world. At the same time, he studied literature and enjoyed horseback riding. At 1.8 meters or 5'9, Joseph certainly looked tall, and he was physically very fit. Adobe Flash Player not installed or older than 9.0.115!  Visit www.youtube.com to see the continuing clips
As life progressed, he evolved into an exceptional violinist. He was appointed by Louis XVI as the director of the Royal Opera House soon after. Of course, this raised a huge outcry because he was half African. Some of the divas of that period were infuriated and hence refused to sing under St. Georges, who was known as the black director. His musical career actually started before the revolution in 1769 when he became a member of the Concert des Amateurs, Gossec’s orchestra. He went on to lead the orchestra a few years later. It was in 1771 that St. Georges was appointed maestro for Concert des Amateurs and due to his virtuosity he went on to become the director of the Concert de la Loge Olympique, which was the biggest orchestra of the 16th century. Saint Georges wrote mostly symphonies that consisted of 25 concertos for orchestra and violin, sonatas, string quartets, and songs that were similar in style to the ones written by Mozart and Haydn. He has written 5 operas and the 6th one ending up in a dispute among several music scholars. He was even invited to play with the queen, Marie-Antoinette. His exotic looks also made him extremely popular with the high society women and was said to have had many lovers. Instead of being decorated with medals, he was taken off his commandSt. Georges did earn some amount of fame as a musician and composer but he lost it all as a colonel in French Army. As he became a target of racialism in the world of music, he began to move back towards fencing. In fact, selective people from the crowd watching his fencing at the Palais Royal gave him the nickname “chevalier”. He fought for the revolution and in April 1793, he was able to arrest General Miaczinski in Lille and this effort went unrecognized. Instead of being decorated with medals, he was taken off his command on September 25, 1793. He was put into jail for 18 months and the accusation laid was embezzlement of public funds for personal gain. In spite his involvement with the French revolution, he didn’t lose his passion for music. Joseph de Boulogne also known as Le Chevalier de St Georges died on June 10, 1799 at the age of 60. He gave so much to the French revolution as well as to music but for more than 200 years, he lies forgotten somewhere deep down in the decaying pages of history. Let today and every day be the day that Le Chevalier de St Georges lives again!!
Film clip from DVD:"Le Mozart Noir:Reviving A Legend" http://www.lemozartnoir.com/ (c)Media Headquarters (c)CBC, Inc. All rights reserved. ALL music in clips performed by the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra http://www.youtube.com/tafelmusik1979 |
Comments
RSS feed for comments to this post