Slow Tempos for Troubled Times

From my earliest days at the piano, I have preferred fast tempos. Music from my high school years is often marked “Don’t rush!” During this pandemic, I have learned to play slowly, or in Italian, the language of music, adagio. In 2007 I bought a copy of Adagio in F minor by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a Black composer, because that year my studio theme was “Music of the African Diaspora.” Only after my friend Nick recently inquired if I knew of him, did I learn to play this piece. Saint-Georges (1745 –99) was a champion fencer, classical composer, virtuoso violinist, and conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. 

Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, he was the son of George Bologne de Saint-Georges, a wealthy married planter, and Anne dite Nanon, his wife’s African slave. His father took him to France when he was young, and he was educated there, also becoming a champion fencer. During the French Revolution, the younger Saint-Georges served as a colonel of the Légion St.-Georges,^[3] the first all-black regiment in Europe. He fought on the side of the Republic. Today the Chevalier de Saint-Georges is best remembered as the first known classical composer of African ancestry.

Here is my performance of the Adagio in F, that he composed in about 1777. It is his only published work for solo piano. Dominique-René de Lerma, Professor Music at Morgan State University, who edited it, observes that “its spirit suggests some comparison with the Mozart Rondo in A minor (K. 511)…unquestionably romantic, the piece is filled with bittersweet sadness, a feeling of resignation, of solitude and loneliness.” Perfect for pandemic isolation!

Slowing down to 40 beats per minute in 6/8 time for this piece informed my study of Johannes Brahms’ Intermezzo, Opus 119, No. 1, also marked adagio. Brahms’ piece is mostly 16th notes in 3/8 time, so I practiced it at about 66 beats per minute. Composed over a century later, it has much more complicated harmonies, which a slow tempo allows to bloom. This is my first attempt to perform it, but it has invaded my consciousness. Slowing down allows more time to express the emotions Brahms calls forth. It’s not the musical love letter I played last month, but it has provided much solace as Corona virus continues to keep us sequestered. I’ve even slowed my typing speed for fewer auto-corrections.

Intrigued by Saint-Georges? Here’s one of his beautiful violin sonatas: