Guadeloupe Attitude on homage to Guadeloupean guitarist Atuahualpa Ferly

In a post dated 26 November 2007, Guadeloupe Attitude, written by our friend Jean-Claude Halley of Guadeloupe, expresses approval of the AfriClassical post which favorably reviewed the career of the young classical guitarist of African descent, Atahualpa Ferly (b. 1974), who is a native of Guadeloupe:

Un juste hommage au guitariste Guadeloupéen Atahualpa Ferly De la part de notre ami Bill Zick, qui continue son reperrage des musiciens noirs sur son très beau site.

[A rough translation might be: “Rightful homage to the Guadeloupean guitarist Atahualpa Ferly from our friend Bill Zick, who continues his reporting on Black musicians on his very beautiful site.”]

Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th & 19th Centuries

This is a tribute to the 10th Anniversary of a landmark CD: "Violin Concertos by Black Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries", Cedille Records CDR 90000 035 (1997). The violin soloist was a 23-year-old Chicago musician named Rachel Barton; she was accompanied by the Encore Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Hege, conductor. The CD was recorded in June, 1997. News of the forthcoming release reached me via an online classical music group that summer.

An earlier CD had introduced me to the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, but this was my first recording of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, José Sylvestre White and Chevalier J.J.O. de Meude-Monpas. When I received my copy in September, I knew from the sound, the cover image of Saint-Georges and the thoughtful liner notes of Prof. Mark Clague of the University of Michigan that I had the makings of a website. Saint-Georges had been heard in the 1970s on the CBS Black Composers Series of LPs, and on a handful of Arion CDs from France, but this was the first U.S. CD to present the music of this distinguished composer of the French Enlightenment.

This disc was also my introduction to Cedille Records, the highly respected classical music label of The Chicago Classical Recording Foundation. Cedille's President is James Ginsburg, who subsequently recorded an important “African Heritage Symphonic Series” in 3 volumes, with the Chicago Sinfonietta and its Founder and Conductor, Dr. Paul Freeman.

David Mermelstein wrote in The New York Times on Feb. 22, 1998:

“The young violinist Rachel Barton handles the concertos' varied demands with unaffected aplomb, performing this music lovingly rather than dutifully.”

ClassicsToday.com wrote:

"10/10 -- Soloist Rachel Barton sounds perfectly at home in all four of these stylistically disparate compositions, but she gives an especially impressive performance of White's expressively and technically demanding concerto. The composers would be pleased to hear such committed advocacy on the part of Daniel Hege and the Encore Chamber Orchestra, who present these works as repertoire staples. Cedille's usual top-drawer sound makes this a disc you should not miss."

The Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation, www.REBF.org, is a tax-exempt charitable organization founded in 2001 to foster awareness and appreciation of classical music. The website explains its landmark effort to diversify classical music for strings, for which I am an Advisor: “The Rachel Elizabeth Barton Foundation is working on an exciting project to research, commission, and compile classical works by composers of African descent. The String Student’s Library of Music by Black Composers will be a supplemental curriculum to acquaint students of all races and various stages of development with the rich heritage of classical string music from this ethnic background. Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma, the leading authority on black classical composers, is Chief Advisor for this project.

The motivation for The String Student's Library grew out of REB Foundation President Rachel Barton Pine's release in 1997 of a CD with the Encore Chamber Orchestra, "Violin Concertos by Blakc Composers from the 18th & 19th Centuries." Working with Chicago's Center for Black Music Research to locate the music and learn more about it, Ms. Pine became keenly aware of the relative obscurity of this repertoire and how little is known about it by students and performers."

A decade after its release, the CD is still in print and is still an important part of the repertoire of recordings of the works of composers of African descent. I continue to give copies of the CD as gifts. One thing which has changed is the historical data on the Chevalier J.J.O. de Meude-Monpas. When Gabriel Banat wrote the biography, “The Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Virtuoso of the Sword and the Bow”, published by Pendragon Press (2006), he found no evidence that Meude-Monpas was of African descent. Historical references had named him a “Black Musketeer”, but Banat's research disclosed that “Black” referred to the color of the horses used by the members of his unit, not to the composer's race.

Dr. Dominique-René de Lerma posted a comment at Amazon.com on June 17, 2007 to clarify the situation: “Quite true, this is an excellent collection of perfectly fine works, offered beautifully by an enormously gifted technician and real musician. No reservations on that point. In very recent times, however, we have determined that Meude-Monpas had no African ancestry. I was responsible for that error about twenty years ago, being misled by everything except for the composer's biography. I wondered at that time why a minority citizen would have been a royalist.”

Black Composer In Polka Dots

As webmaster of www.AfriClassical.com, I have closely followed CDs of the music of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799). He was born to a slave of African descent, on a Caribbean plantation owned by his father, a French aristocrat. Incredibly, this son of a slave rose to the top of French society through his mastery of fencing and his genius for classical music!

Monsieur de Saint-George: 4 Concertos pour violon, Calliope 9373 (2007), copyright of the Calliope label, is a new CD by the ensemble Les Archets de Paris. I find its cover art disturbing and bordering on ridicule. It clearly departs from the norm for CDs of the music of Saint-Georges.

Contemporary portraits of the Afro-French composer show him impeccably dressed in the finery of an 18th century aristocrat. A red jacket is entirely compatible with period portraits, but the Calliope cover art depicts Saint-Georges in a red jacket covered with white polka dots.

What is the historical basis of polka dots? They are absurd! The outfit resembles a clown suit more than a gentleman's formal attire! Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges is still unknown to many fans of classical music. Someone seeing his image for the first time in this cover art would have a highly unrealistic idea of him.

I have not yet seen the recording on sale at websites based in the U.S., but it is widely available on French websites. Calliope has a U.S. distributor, so it won't be surprising if this disc shows up soon at U.S. stores and websites.

Saint-Georges was educated in elite schools in France. Famous first as the finest fencer in France, he later emerged as a virtuoso violinist, a fashionable composer, and conductor of the best orchestras in Paris. Marie-Antoniette invited him to play music with her at Versailles on a regular basis, beginning in 1779.

It is only fitting that Les Archets de Paris and soloists Bertrand Cervera, Christophe Guiot and Thibault Vieux should lend their talents to interpreting four fine violin works of Saint-Georges. Dozens of CDs of his music have been released by other ensembles; the new recording is a welcome addition to the composer's works in print.

The best known portrait of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges was painted by the American artist Mather Brown in London in 1787. To illustrate his two careers, the artist depicted Saint-Georges in formal concert attire, but holding a sword in place of a conductor's baton. This portrait is found on the above CD Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges: Concertos pour violon, Arion 68093 (1990), copyright of the Arion record label.

Calliope is based in France. I have respectfully informed its U.S. distributor that I believe the cover art on Calliope 9373 (2007) should be replaced.