Sonata Mulattica

Un début curieux, & qui a infiniment intéresse, c’est celui de M. Bridge-Tower, jeune Nègre des Colonies, qui a joué plusieurs concertos de violon avec une netteté, une facilité, une exécution & même une sensibilité, qu’il est bien rare de rencontrer dans un age si tendre (il n’a pas dix ans). Son talent, aussi vrai que précose, est une des meilleures réponses que l’on puisse faire aux Philosophes qui veulent priver ceux de sa Nation & de sa couleur, de la faculté de se distinguer dans les Arts.

[A curious debut, & one of infinite interest, is that of Mr. Bridge-Tower, young Negro from the Colonies, who has performed several violin concertos with a clarity, facility, execution & sensitivity that is quite rare to encounter at so tender an age (he is not yet ten years old). His talent, as genuine as it is precocious, is one of the best responses one can make to those Philosophers that seek to deprive those of his Nation & color of the opportunity to distinguish themselves in the Arts.]

Snow’s a gentle pillager: It sucks

where we have no more rags to bind,

seeks out our furthest tips to freeze

in reprimand. From the East

an icy flourish reminds us

how meager an essence we harbor:

mere blood and burbling humors

trussed into a package of skin.

Each booted stride

a cracking:

trudge, slip, o woeful

processional. This is

our lot. Our staged creation:

whiteness billowing, fuzzed silence sliced

by a woman—one scream

only, quickly held back.

She is one of us, a peasant

mindful of the body’s purpose:

Be strong, survive.

Bundled in the season’s last rags,

all tufts and breath-sodden fringes,

we permit a brief yearning

to burn deep in the gut

on this day of no accounting,

no different than yesterday or tomorrow,

and then the answering cry, all but muted

by the western wind . . . tiny, enraged.

That’s it, then. Another soul

quickened to misery,

dark as our shadows lurching

over the snow-riddled furrows.

Another spirit cursed to walk

this glacial crust, another body

some day to bury.

Miklós the Magnificent,

otherwise known as Nikolaus Josef

of the clan Salamon in the Czallóköz

and successor to the seat of Esterházy in Galanta,

royal instigator of the Baroque castle at Fertöd,

Lieutenant Field Marshall of the Austrian Empire (decorated),

musician (practiced), sober, honest,

and educated by Jesuits,

had a fantasy: to assemble

an array of Nature’s eccentricities—

a dwarf, an African, perhaps a gypsy

or ferocious Turk or flat-faced Borneo,

summoning each before him

dressed in the deep blue and red livery

of the House of Esterházy

to see who among them would bear

with the most decorum

the imperial trappings.

He would hold a masquerade.

Haydn could work up an opera.

All this transpired within a crescent of ochre stone

run aground in the marshlands

of Neusiedlersee, rural

western Hungary,

in the year

1785.

The boy is smitten with tiny sounds:

purring bees and crickets, sighing leaves,

hammer clack from the courtyard.

(Will those flagstones ever finish?)

Last evening I managed to shoo him off

seconds before the Prince

exited the belvedere on his way

in to dine: This time

the royal tapered heels tip-tapping

had mesmerized. I apologized

with my most flamboyant bow

(guaranteed to coax a smile).

Now Pater Niemecz has volunteered

to attend this strange rapture;

all morning from the library

an infernal peeping—

mechanical clocks blasting the ether

with their toy fife parade!

No nervous solicitudes can muffle

this noise nor genuflection deliver

a reprieve—here’s Maestro Haydn,

fresh from his daily audience,

striding across the marble

in full Kapellmeister livery

to investigate our misery’s

source: Tomorrow . . . tomorrow,

gods willing, if there is a tomorrow . . .

I’ll arrange to send the boy north,

back to Saxony, so his mother

can do the sorting. First, though,

there’s the small matter

of this approaching tribunal,

Pater, Meister, and Youngblood—

my petit terror smiling

up at me, caught in the thrall

of his bright brown

ignorance. Master Haydn

reaches down to cup

the rough head, murmurs:

There’s music in here.

Ach, is that so?

Then, by your Lordship’s

grace and the sacred

lyre of Apollo,

let’s squeeze it out of him!

Little monkey, little cow,

Can you hear me listening? Now:

Ticking clock, piano plink—

Watch me hear you, feel me think.

Barbiere di Siviglia,

Paisiello’s L’amor contrastato;

Cimarosa’s Il credulo and

L’impresario in angustie.

A curious debut, & one of infinite interest, is that of Mr. Bridge-Tower, young Negro from the Colonies . . .

At nine years, the youth astonishes

for his maturity of playing.

We at Le Mercure celebrate his arrival

to the Parisian concert stage.

They say leap-year babies

are out-of-time, moony. I’m really

just two birthdays’ old, closer to the womb

than this world.

He was presented by his father, the Moor

Friedrich Augustus, to whom much praise is due.

Praise me. I am small. This hall looms

nearly as large and dark as he.

The notion that the carriage wheels clattering through Paris

remind him of the drums from the islands in his father’s tales:

clickclack sputterwhir—he could make a song of it, dance

this four-in-hand down the cobbles of the rue du Bac

as he balances his small weight against the pricking cushions

clacksputter whir—all the cadences jumbled together

except the thudding dirge of his heart.

That he can see, in curtained twilight, the violin case in his lap

twitch with every jounce, like an animal trapped under the hunter’s eye;

that he can sense, down shrouded alleys, danger rustling just as surely

as he can feel spring’s careless fingers feathering his chest and smell

April’s ferment in the stink of the poor marching toward him. . . .

Though none of this is true. He hears nothing but clatter.

He can’t see the rain-slicked arc of the bridge passing under him

as the pale stone of the palace rears up and he climbs down

to be whisked into the massive Salle des Machines,

his father’s cloak folded back like a bat’s tucked wing—

because it was a dry spring that year on the Continent.

Nonetheless, he ignores his heart’s thudding and steps out

onto the flickering stage, deep and treacherous

as a lake still frozen at sunset, aglow with reflected light.

Soon the music will take him across; he’ll feel each string’s ecstasy

thrum in his head and only then dare to open his eyes to gaze

past the footlights at the rows of powdered curls

(let’s see the toy bear jump his hoops!)

nodding, lorgnettes poised, not hearing but judging—

except for that tall man on the aisle, with hair

the orange of fading leaves; and the two girls beside him—

one a younger composition of snow and embers,

but the other—oh the other dark, dark yet warm

as the violin’s nut-brown sheen . . . miraculous creature

who fastens her solemn black gaze on the boy as if to say

you are what I am, what I yearn to be—

so that he plays only for her and not her keepers;

and when he is finally free to stare back,

applause rippling over the ramparts—even then

she does not smile.

I was told to practice

out of sight, in the servants’ wing.

I was also required to execute

a gentleman’s curtsy, deep as a girl’s—

stick the left leg out and sweep my arm

as if whisking an imaginary hat

from an imaginary powdered wig.

I’ve always wanted such a hat,

with three corners and crests

and a towering plume. Someday,

Father says, meaning Be still.

But I am! So quiet, from the shadows

I can hear a maid’s shushed giggle;

I can listen to the concertmaster’s

muttered grunts and wheezes

without once blurting: Papa Haydn

wouldn’t rush so, he says each note

deserves its appointed terrain. . . .

I am to appear at the Queen’s Lodge

promptly at seven, make my gentleman’s bow

and play the Viotti Concerto.

So many glittering halls! And secret passageways

strung behind them to travel through

like favored mice between the walls.

Windsor: Every phrase ends with it,

each whisper another wondrous layer—

You’re quite the lucky lad to be here;

the feather in your cap, boy, remember

Windsor—and on and on, until the word

grows its own breeze, Father’s robes swirling

as I follow—hurry, boy!—over Middle Ward

and out the iron castle gate: I can see

the Lodge now, a dim brown snag

plopped square and dark across the longest path

anyone could ever imagine.

Struck dumb? Always happens

the first time.

It makes me think of ships,

of travel: a line slicing the soft green,

God’s whip lash straight down

the heaving back of England . . .

The Long Walk at Windsor:

all the world at His Majesty’s feet!

No. Mine, in these pinch-buttoned shoes.

All the world left behind,

not the world I am walking toward

now.

Preparations for the winter included procuring

thick stuff for warm petticoats, plus

the sewing of four great coats, dark blue,

with matching rows of small gold buttons

for the children—who looked,

in the words of Mrs. Burke, “winning.”

The Queen remarked upon them as well,

commending me for managing always

to outfit them in a manner both elegant

and unassuming. I was overcome by her kindness.

We were invited to Her Majesty’s Lodge

to hear the newest musical prodigy.

Young violinist Bridgetower arrived at Windsor

accompanied by his father, an African

yet a man of discernment and varied tastes,

exquisite deportment and considerable

beauty of form. The son, a lad of ten or twelve,

bore a hue that seemed cast in darkest bronze;

he was smartly dressed, possessed an admirable

restraint, and played the Viotti Concerto

with an eloquence and refinement

rarely delivered by his more celebrated seniors.

Afterwards we enjoyed a light supper

of cold meats and poultry, followed by sweets.

The father Bridgetower entertained the table

with his judicious and amusing observations;

he knows several languages and seems at home

in the world. I was glad to be wearing

the yellow Indian muslin over white petticoats,

with purple straps and gold embroidery

along the veil, arranged en toque,

which drew compliments from all present,

including the Moor.

Take a square box, the sides of which are three feet and a half, and the height

a foot and a half. Take a large Norfolk turnip, cut off the green of the leaves, . . . and put the turnip on the middle of the top of the box. Then take four turnips of half the size, treat them in the same way, and put them on the corners of the box. Then take a considerable number of the bulbs of the crown imperial, the narcissus, the hyacinth, the tulip, the crocus, and others; let the leaves of each have sprouted to about an inch, more or less according to the size of the bulb; put all these, pretty promiscuously, but pretty thickly, on the top of the box. Then stand off and look at your architecture. There! . . . as to what you ought to put in the box, that is a subject far above my cut.

More than a dream, more than longing,

the banner of scent fading

as you advance, fifty years

to completion but always ahead

by half a whiff, one blink of

a weary eye, one tear’s sting

as the field brightens, blurs . . . oh if only.

More than all that.

More than brocade’s parabolic flashes and shadows.

More than a lorgnette dangling from the perfect manicure,

saffron’s burning filaments shaken

from a diminutive tube,

wisps and whiskers,

dream within a dream, perhaps not even that . . .

you need to imagine yourself larger

than the country you occupy. You need to make

others understand what you have glimpsed,

against the morning sky, inside a nutshell,

its singular beauty—the perforated towers

like granite lace, the roof a garden of domes and spires,

voluptuous, riotous . . . too extravagant

for this fishing village, indeed too extravagant

for Britain, but this is how lavish a spirit

a great nation must offer! Clouds, after all, are more

than bearers of rain. The infinite sea

moves inside us; each morsel placed on the tongue awakens

the perfumes and sediments of its origins.

There can never be enough pleasure.

To deny ourselves the prospect of ravishment

is to be cursed to gnash our pitiable path

through existence, to squeal when fed and bray

when kicked. People, feast upon this

miracle—such beauty shining

almost weightless above

the net-strewn encampments of the whelk eaters;

this vision a promise from your King-to-be:

proof that each of us bears inside

a ruinous, monumental love.

Everyone in this brine-soused village

believes an African loves color—so let it be

red for our promenade along the Steyne,

with a splash of yellow

to inflame their watery sensibilities.

I think it’s the sun they so yearn for;

blue saddens this close to the sea, though

turquoise is beckoning and emerald’s best

a hue entertained only in furnishings. True,

we are props of a sort, let’s not forget it;

yet what an aspect we’ll project

unleashed among the masses!

Against our darker palette, any color thrills.

The main thing is fabric and plenty of it:

clouds of silk, waves of damask

to be cast off or furled neat to the chest

with a certain, sly emphasis. . . .

You’ll learn these sophistications in time.

For now, it’s enough to remember

we are here to confound them,

these wizened polyps crossing the sands

in their creaking bathing machines!

So: bright sashes and billowing sleeves,

rings on as many fingers as you dare,

perhaps a turban or some other headdress

to lend majesty without competing.

The ladies adore a cape. Different

from a cloak, this you can wear inside,

where one brisk swirl will conjure a fable

of perfumed trysts and moonlit swordplay.

As for the embroidered slippers—ungainly

as they might seem, the upturned toes

do not emasculate. Each step becomes

necessarily deliberate, and so recalls

the boudoir.

Don’t flinch! It won’t do

to ignore what waits behind each smile—

that unvoiced sigh, accompanying

your every tremolo! Go ahead, examine

those upturned faces in the concert hall,

their tiny gasps and glistening cheeks. . . .

I’ve seen it, boy, even for one young as you.

Ah, the ladies are always bored and lonely.

You will not need a horse if you have a cape.

Embittered negotiations with the King’s musicians have led

to the regrettable situation in which I found myself

this morning. To begin, the benefit concert intended to announce

young Bridgetower to musical society

could not find adequate orchestral accompaniment;

the petition was rejected summarily by the royal musicians,

who steadfastly refuse to play extra musical events

ever since the King had dismissed their appeal

to be allowed employment off royal payroll;

this standoff was resolved by Mr. Papendiek’s offer

to host the concert at our house: and so to me

fell the task of supervising ticket sales, refreshment,

the arrangement of furniture, and the like.

But Time will neither race nor tarry, and so all was sorted out.

The guests arrived in high spirits—and with some surprises;

protocol was smoothed over as best as circumstances permitted.

Mrs. Jervois shone in her purple silk and gold-worked cape;

I had settled on my muslin dress with jacket,

graced by a chip hat trimmed in deep mazarin blue,

as befitting the hostess for the evening.

The entertainments began—a flute quartet

followed by a glee, and then the Viotti Concerto

played by young Bridgetower, who sparkled with pathos.

I could tell others were as deeply affected

at the prospect of such talent among us.

As the children could not be admitted officially

(for that would take seats away from paying subscribers),

my little Fred curled up on the floor, his back against the sofa,

for the first Act; and when the maid came looking

slid under and stayed there, through refreshments

and Clementi’s Duet in C, which opened the second Act;

after which he rose to kiss me and went sweetly off to bed.

There followed more singing, two quartets with Bridgetower,

a symphony, and it was over—except for refreshments

up and down stairs, and a late supper for the performers.

Although I retired when the ladies departed,

I could hear the men laughing well into the night.

Saturday morning last the citizens of Bath hailed the debut

of a phenomenal musical talent: the mulatto George Bridgetower,

in concert at the New Assembly Rooms. Aged only ten, the youth

astonished all with his maturity of rendition and technical perfection;

our own Rauzzini, whose mindful generosity toward public entertainment

should be extolled at every opportunity, declared he had never heard

such execution before. Those fortunate enough to acquire tickets

numbered more than five hundred and fifty persons; eager patrons swarmed

even into the Recesses and Gallery, and left enthralled by the experience.

If it is true, as has been aired about town, that the boy is

a former pupil of Haydn, as well as the grandson

of an African prince, both claims were abundantly manifest

in his lofty bearing and eloquent expression. He was presented

by his distinguished Father, who is to be commended for cultivating

a musical prodigy of so courteous and prepossessing a disposition.

One would be hard-pressed to find a more pacific and attentive

caregiver; indeed, upon completion of the Viotti Concerto

in the first half of the program, the Father, overcome by

the acclamations showered upon his progeny, wept from sheer joy.