Joseph Bologne Chevalier de St.-George (jan 1, 1744 – jan 1, 1799)

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A French composer, though Caribbean born to a plantation owner and an African woman enslaved by him. George Bologne moved with his father to France to be educated. Joseph Bologne was a violin prodigy, and his musical virtuosity was so matched in his fencing that he was given a knighthood (hence the name “Chevalier de Saint-Georges'').

Bologne’s musical career quickly accelerated, becoming concertmaster of the Concert des Amateurs in 1771 and its director by 1773. Bologne was also quite well-known in aristocratic circles; in 1774, he was invited to make music with Marie Antoinette. When the Royal Opera turned him down for a directorship because of his race, Bologne went on to write multiple operas, including the wildly successful L’Amant Anonyme (1780). Towards the end of his life, Bologne’s musical production slowed, and he died in Paris in 1799.

He was on the forefront of the musical scene in France as the Galant style died out and the first signs of the Romantic period began to make themselves known. Bologne is (and was) often referred to as “The Black Mozart”, this moniker both does him a great disservice and is ahistorical. In actuality, Bologne preceded Mozart by over a decade and had a demonstrable effect on his music, rather than the other way around. In fact, Leopold Mozart actually sent his son to Bologne, and they lived under the same roof for several months. Bologne was also one of the composers who pioneered the “sinfonia concertante” genre that Mozart studied and imitated, and that continued to influence composers well into the Romantic Period and beyond.

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