It’s hard to imagine an artist’s life more adventurous or romantic than that of the 18th century’s Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges. He was not only the champion fencer of France in his teens—the achievement he was best known for in his own time—but a virtuosic violinist, a leading composer and orchestra leader who likely knew and influenced Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, an army officer who played an important role in the French Revolution, and by all accounts an active ladies’ man. His many accomplishments are all the more remarkable since Saint-Georges was half black—the only son of a slave and a plantation owner from Guadeloupe who brought his family to France.

According to violinist Monica Huggett, guest performer with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra for its program Le Mozart Noir, Saint-Georges was clearly a genius, and is only beginning to get the recognition he deserves.

“There’s been a lot of interest in him in France for maybe 30 years,” says Huggett, reached at her home in Portland, Oregon. “Especially his concertos and sinfonia concertanti—a special musical genre that evolved in France at the time of his prominence. It’s an orchestral piece where you show off your brilliant players as soloists and give them a chance to shine—one of the reasons it’s interesting for baroque orchestras now. Saint-Georges wrote quite a lot of them.”

In 1772 Saint-Georges made his solo debut with the Concert des Amateurs, an orchestra of the best musicians in Paris, and a year later he became its musical director. At this time he composed two of the works presented by the PBO—his Concerto for Two Violins and Strings in G Major, and the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in C Major, which Huggett will play.

“It has a broad step. The first movement is not rip-roaring, it’s elegant and quite long. The second, in the minor, is really beautiful and atmospheric. And the last movement is a typical French rondo. You can see that his palette of expression is very French, so in the last movement you have this beautiful simple melody and then you get it in the minor and it’s much more affecting. And you have some virtuoso touches, which are extremely hard. He had a virtuoso bowing technique, I think because he was a fencer. You can just see his fencer’s bow arm moving very quickly, but also there’s this incredible passage going all the way down the E and A strings. I think that because we’re now discovering more about historical style, we’re learning how to make sense of his kind of music.”

The Vancouver concert also features Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 85 in B-Flat Major, known as “La Reine”, which Saint-Georges directed at its premiere, as well as a concerto by Jean-Marie Leclair, deemed France’s greatest violinist at the time, that requires great
virtuosity, and Mozart’s Symphony in F Major.

The links between Mozart and Saint-Georges are not only fascinating but, according to Huggett, probably not flattering for the great Austrian composer. “Mozart was in Paris with his mother in 1778 and she died there. Soon after that, he wrote the absolute masterpiece of sinfonia concertanti, for violin and viola in E-flat major. There’s very good evidence now that after his mother’s death Mozart moved into a house that he shared with Saint-Georges for two months. But Saint-Georges doesn’t turn up in Mozart’s letters. That may be racism, or Mozart may be more vulnerable than one realizes, feeling intimidated by this chap who was a brilliant instrumentalist, a composer, an incredible fencer and horseman and sportsman and everything. There’s no written evidence, but you can see from Mozart’s sinfonia concertante, I think, that he was influenced by the music of the chevalier. There’s a long way to go to rehabilitate him.”

The Pacific Baroque Orchestra performs Le Mozart Noir: Symphonies by Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Mozart, and Haydn on Saturday (February 4) at the Vancouver Playhouse.