The Chevalier de Saint-George, a “black Mozart” and Frenchman recognized abroad

The streets of Cremona creak, squeak, and vibrate, filled with the smell of horsehair and varnish. The 175 luthiers in the violin capital of northern Italy are experts on Stradivarius. They are less forthcoming, however, about a composer who provided their instruments with virtuoso scores: the Chevalier de Saint-George, born in Guadeloupe in 1739 or 1745 and died in Paris in 1799. "Ah yes, the 'black Mozart,'" mutters a luthier, without elaborating.

This is the label that has long defined this eclectic and brilliant figure of the Enlightenment, musician, fencer and soldier, son of a white planter and a black slave. During his stay in Paris in 1778, did Mozart not plagiarize one of his concertos from the ballet Les Petits Riens ? Recently, however, this cumbersome analogy has begun to fade. "The great violinists of today, like Anne-Sophie Mutter or Francesca Dego, play the music of the Knight, which is finally worthwhile in its own right," says Luca Quinti, author of a biography (Diastema, 2019, not translated). However, the Italian has not given up on calling his work Il Mozart nero : "the black Mozart"...

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