What’s in a name?

Who will ever be able to forget the small time criminal Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop? Or perhaps the overly-long names of composers such as César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck or Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry. Clearly, Exceptional people often are given exceptional names.

Enter Joseph Balogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, also known as “The Black Mozart.” Born in the Antilles to a plantation owner and a slave, Bologne became and expert fencer and violinist (because of course, those two disciplines go hand in hand) among many other things. John Adams himself wrote of Saint-Georges: “He is the most accomplished Man in Europe in Riding, Running, Shooting, Fencing, Dancing, Musick. He will hit the Button, any Button on the Coat or Waistcoat of the greatest Masters. He will hit a Crown Piece in the Air with a Pistoll Ball.”

He lived a life worthy of the protagonist of a Rafael Sabatini novel – political revolutions, military service, scandals, with strings quartets and operas to accompany. There is even speculation that the German Mozart and the Black Mozart had a little tiff which ended with the German creating an evil opera character based on Saint-Georges. Whether or not that is true, it is impossible to ignore Saint-Georges was a musical force to be reckoned with. He might have been adept at “Riding, Running, Shooting, Fencing, Dancing,” but it is for his Musick that we remember him.