Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1739? -1799)

Gary Smith

(From the journal of John Adams, the 2nd President of the United States, then serving as a representative of the Continental Congress on assignment in Paris)… "17 May 1779…Landais gave us an account of St-George at Paris, a mulatto man…St-George is the most Accomplished man in Europe, in riding, running shooting, fencing, dancing, music. St-George will hit the button, any button on the coat or waistcoat of the greatest masters. He will hit a crown-piece in the air with a pistol ball."

                         St-George, in an age filled with remarkable men, was one of the more remarkable. He was an excellent athlete in an age that did not prize this much. He was a master fencer and accomplished shot. He was an officer in the French army. He was a noted violin virtuoso as well as composer. He was the conductor of one of the two premier orchestras in Paris. He was the archetypal romantic hero; spectacularly gifted but destined to play the role of the outsider. Only now have his works and story been resurrected after lying dormant for 200 years.

Son of a former councilor of Parliament and a black woman from Guadeloupe in the Caribbean, the family lived in the New World until 1749, when they moved to Paris in 1749. In his teens, St-George became a pupil of the famous arms master La Boessiere for six years and as well took riding lessons from Dugast. His skill was such that he undertook his first public fencing match in Paris at the age of 27 and, while losing, was predicted to be come the finest swordsman in Europe.

St-Georges musical background is very sketchy. He appears to have taken violin studies with the family's plantation manager on St. Dominque, and then in France studied with Leclair. He did take compositional studies with Gossec as well. Since the six years with Le Boessiere were devoted to physical training and school studies, it is assumed that St-Georges studied and practiced after that, from say 1758 up until 1769, the year of his first professional engagement as a first violinist in Gossec's Concert des Amateurs, one of the two best orchestras in Paris (and by extension, all of France). Again, there is no documented evidence that he actually WAS Gossec's pupil; he may have only received advice and encouragement from the older composer. However, the records do show that St-Georges made his public debut at the Concert des Amateurs in 1772 as a soloist, performing his two violin concerti Op.2. The regard the authorities had for St-Georges and his abilities were such that when Gossec became a director of the rival Concert Spirituel in 1773, St-Georges succeeded him as musical director/conductor of the Amateurs, improving it into being considered the finest orchestra in France.

The year 1773 saw St-Georges publish the above mentioned violin concerti as well as 6 string quartets. Within the next two years, he composed another 6 violin concerti as well. In 1777, he switched to the new rage in Paris, the symphonia concertante, issuing four in that year. Between 1777 and 1785, he composed a total of 10 such works. As well, his first opera debuted, the comedy Ernestine. This was followed in 1778 by another, La Chasse, which is unfortunately lost, after apparently appearing only three times on stage.

1778 also saw Mozart and his mother arrive in Paris. This would have been at or near the height of St-Georges reputation. So, it is strange that nowhere in the Mozart correspondence do we see a mention of this remarkable man. As the musical director of one of the two great orchestras in France, it seems very odd that Mozart would not have sought out a meeting in order to establish contact with this most influential man within the French musical establishment. Granted that when Mozart began his rounds of contacts (such as they were, he was not keen on making such efforts), the Concert des Amateurs season had concluded and so he would not have been able to make any immediate sales, the contacts and introductions St-Georges could have offered were of great value to be able to get established in Paris. Still, even the chance to have simply seen him at a party at a notable Paris salon should have triggered some sort of effort to gain a meeting. Unless there is a missing letter or two from the Paris correspondence, this appears to be an inexcusable lapse on the parts of Leopold, Wolfgang and Grimm, Mozart's Paris patron and contact.

Unless….

Mozart's Paris output of works includes a fairly complete sketch of a ballet work. There is no known use for it, as the one ballet work he did complete, Les Petits Riens K.299b, is not derived from it in any way. The slender plot of this unfinished work, as well as it can be made out from Mozart's sketches, deals with a man who dares to dance with another woman while his wife is absent. (Those pre-revolutionary cads!). Unusual for Mozart, this ballet fragment was given a title. Which is La Chasse. The same title, be it noted, as St-Georges lost opera mentioned above. From the same year 1778, as well. The small but tantalizing question is: Did Mozart actually meet St-Georges and plan in some way to add this ballet to his opera? Mozart had added material to a Miserere K.297a by another composer while in Paris, why not another? Could either of them changed their minds about this project and allowed the ballet to drop? Did perhaps St-Georges pull back when Mozart became closer to Le Gros, of the rival Concert Spirituel? Or, did the death of Mozart's mother cause him to withdraw from composing at the pace he had been at before, and so cause St-Georges to continue on without him? The opera did premiere in October 12th of 1778; Mozart's mother having died in July. With the requirements of the opera needing attention from certainly August on, could Mozart's depression have caused him to opt out? Is this all just a pipedream? We can't know unless either the lost opera La Chasse turns up, missing Mozart correspondence comes to light, or some other paperwork comes to light in an archive somewhere to shed light on this area.

Due to financial problems, the Concert des Amateurs was disbanded in 1781. Undeterred, St-Georges founded the Concert de la Loge Olympique that same year. In order to promote it better and gain more renown for it, it commissioned 6 symphonies from Joseph Haydn (the so-called "Paris" Symphonies), St-Georges himself traveling to Vienna in 1784 to deliver the commission. These works by Haydn were composed to a higher level than previous works by him, once again putting him at the forefront of critical and popular acclaim.

The balance of the 1780's were given over to composition and directing the Concert de la Loge Olympique. There is evidence as well that St-Georges became a member of the Freemasons during this time. A tour to London occurred in 1785, where he gave fencing exhibitions.

With the outbreak of the French Revolution, the Concert de la Loge Olympique was dissolved. The ideals of the revolution appealed to nearly all the blacks in France at the time; it was no different for St-Georges. The year 1789 saw him volunteer and enroll in the National Guard in Lille and secured the rank of captain within a year. By 1792, the Assembly in Paris decreed the formation of a corps of light troops of blacks known as the Legion Nationale du Midi. St-Georges was appointed colonel in command and the unit quickly became unofficially titled Legion St-Georges. However, all revolutions devour their children in one way or another, and in 1793 accusations were brought against many individuals for imagined wrongdoings; St-Georges unfortunately getting caught up in the fury of it all. He was accused in front of the Revolutionary Council of misappropriation of public funds for personal profit, which would mean in this context stealing his men's pay. He was able to clear himself of this charge, but was relived of command. Tellingly, when cleared he was FORBIDDEN to live or reside anywhere near his former legionnaires, men who had supported him in his efforts to clear his name.

However, this did not stop the efforts of those in power that were made to look foolish in their attempt to punish St-Georges. Within three months of clearing his name, he was again imprisoned on corruption charges. This time, he remained in jail for 18 months while the charges were investigated. However, the National Convention's Committee of Public Security ordered him released finally in October of 1794, cleared of the charges but ruined as an officer. He took up touring to make a living, and managed to scrape by well enough to book passage back to St. Dominque in 1796. He stayed for less than a year, returning to Paris in 1797, where he served as director of a new musical organization, the Cercle de l'Harmonie. He published a few more works, but died in 1799 at the age of 60, forgotten by the musical establishment.

Many of St- Georges works are now available on the Avenira label, with 5 CD's issued so far. This series offers the public 12 violin concerti, 6 symphonia concertante and one symphony. As well, Naxos has one CD available with 3 violin concerti on it. St-Georges is not Mozart (who is?), but his music is virtuosic without going overboard, his closing rondeaus have appealing themes and overall the works are well thought out and constructed. If there is any criticism to be made, it might be that for my taste, his opening movements tend to be cooler and less engaging than other composers with whom I am familiar. Never the less, the works issued that I have heard are all of a high caliber and worthy of attention.

Sources for this paper are from the liner notes to the CD's themselves, especially the Avenira ones. His story is told progressively from CD to CD in this five CD series, and is filled with many, many facts and details that illuminate this remarkable man. This has to be about the best series of CDs on a composer's works to actually inform the listener about the history of the person behind the music.

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