Saint-georges: Violin Concertos No. 1, Op. 3 And Nos. 2 And 10

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Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (ca. 1745-1799)Violin Concertos, Vol. 2In an age of remarkable individuals Joseph Boulogne, leChevalier de Saint-Georges occupies a unique position as an athlete, violinvirtuoso and composer. The son of a French colonial planter and a beautifulSenegalese slave, Joseph Boulogne was born near Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, andlived for some time on an estate on St Domingue before his family finallysettled in Paris in around 1749. In his early teens Saint-Georges became apupil of the famous master of arms La Bo?½ssi?¿re and also had riding lessons withDugast at the Tuileries. He fought his first public fencing match in Paris withGiuseppe Gianfaldoni on 8th September 1766 and, although he lost, his opponentpredicted that Saint-Georges would become the finest swordsman in Europe.               Virtuallynothing is known about the musical education of Saint-Georges, although earlyaccounts of his life claim that he had lessons with Platon, his father'splantation manager on St Domingue, and it has been suggested that he laterstudied violin with Leclair and composition with Gossec in France. As the sixyears he spent in La Bo?½ssi?¿re's establishment were devoted exclusively tophysical training and academic studies it has been assumed that the bulk of hismusical education took place between 1758 and 1769, the year of his firstprofessional engagement, as a violinist in Gossec's Concert des Amateurs. Itseems more than likely that Gossec encouraged Saint-Georges's ambitions as acomposer and may have offered him professional advice even if no formalpupil-teacher relationship existed. Saint-Georges made his public debut as asoloist with the Concert des Amateurs in 1772, performing his two violinconcertos Op. 2. When Gossec became a director of the Concert Spirituel in1773, Saint-Georges succeeded him as musical director and leader of theAmateurs which rapidly won recognition as one of the finest orchestras inFrance.In 1777 Saint-Georges made his debut as an opera composerwith Ernestine at the Comedie-Italienne and in the course of the same year hebecame affiliated to the private theatre and concerts of Mme de Montesson whowas secretly married to the Duke of Orleans. Utilising Saint-Georges's othertalents, the duke put him in charge of his hunting retinue at his seat in LeRaincy.After the disbanding of the Amateurs in January 1781,probably owing to ongoing financial problems, Saint-Georges founded the Concertde la Loge Olympique, the orchestra for whom Count d'Ogny commissioned Haydn tocompose his brilliant set of six 'Paris' symphonies. On the death of the Dukeof Orleans in 1785 Saint-Georges lost his position in the household and visitedLondon, where he gave exhibition fencing matches at Angelo's Academy. Hereturned to Paris in 1787, composed a moderately successful comedy, Lafille-gar?ºon, and resumed work with the Loge Olympique.Within six months of the