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THREAD: OK, real talk time. It is LONG overdue to pay Joseph Boulogne some respect. But, we need to retire that offensive "Black Mozart" nickname. If anything, we should call Mozart "White Saint-Georges." Know thy history. https://variety.com/2020/film/news/black-mozart-movie-searchlight-stefani-robinson-stephen-williams-1234693968/
Consider this: Mozart lived in Paris between March and September of 1778, when he was 22 y/o. He and Saint-Georges, who was then 33 and already an acclaimed performer, conductor, and composer, even lived in the same house for a short period, hosted by the Count Sickingen.
It is almost impossible that Mozart did not listen to Saint-Georges’s music while in Paris. In 1773, the composer Gossec (for those of you who did Suzuki, the gavotte guy) named Saint-Georges his successor as director of the Concert des Amateurs.
In fact, the orchestra under him was widely regarded as the best symphony orchestra in France and for many the best in Europe. Composers like Stamitz dedicated orchestral works to Saint-Georges, written especially as to highlight his qualities as a violinist and as a conductor.
Saint-Georges was not a trend follower. He was a trend setter. As a curator, he commissioned and premiered important works such as Haydn’s six Paris Symphonies. And, he wrote often for his ensemble.
He was one the pioneers of symphonie concertante as a genre, writing his first one in 1775. His soloist string writing was rather unique, esp his favoring of sequential passages climbing all the way up to the altissimo register followed by dramatic dips into the bottom register.
Mozart’s first composition after his return to Salzburg is his Symphonie Concertante in E-flat, his first attempt in the genre, notice some string passages rather unusual for him, including - you guessed it - altissimo figures with sudden dramatic low register dips.
Why don’t we play his music more often? Mostly because most people don’t even know of his existence. Of the two most used music history books in the US, he gets one very brief and vague mention in the Grout/Palisca, and is not mentioned once in the Taruskin/Gibbs.
How come someone so historically and musically important has been so mistreated by music history? The answer is pretty clear. Even during his time, Saint-Georges was resented by many for his success and influence, specifically because of his race.
When mentioned by history, he is usually presented as an oddity. We call him the Black Mozart, which is astonishingly meant as a compliment. He has been immortalized as an inferior sub-product of white masters when many, in fact, benefited from his knowledge and originality.
That’s how we tend to assess Black classical music, through biased comparisons to a supposedly superior model.
So, yes, I cannot wait to see the movie. But, spare me that awful nickname.
So, yes, I cannot wait to see the movie. But, spare me that awful nickname.
