Composer, writer and abolitionist Ignatius Sancho celebrated with modern take on the Baroque

Born on a slave ship, the author of esteemed letters, a famed abolitionist and reputedly the first man of African heritage to vote in a British general election, Ignatius Sancho (c1729-80) is finally regaining in posterity the imposing reputation he had in his lifetime. But it was not just these achievements that made American countertenor Reginald Mobley pay attention. There was the portrait of Sancho by Gainsborough, which Mobley saw in the National Gallery of Canada, and the volumes of dances and songs that he composed.

“I was absolutely taken by Sancho and his music,” says Mobley. “As a Black American growing up in the Deep South, I had the notion that classical music was for elitist white people, not for somebody who looked like me, and yet here was a composer who lived long before [African-American musicians] Florence Price and Paul Robeson, which was a revelation. He became my patronus, my spirit animal, from that point forward, and I wanted to try and champion Sancho as much as I could.”

Mobley started including songs by Sancho in his recital programmes and from there it was only a short step to have arrangements made of some of his dances for a string orchestra. Then came the idea of a new work derived from Sancho’s letters.

Called From Ignatius Sancho, it has music by British composer and baritone Roderick Williams with text selected by Mobley, who will be the soloist at the premiere with the Academy of Ancient Music in Cambridge on May 25. The concert has been devised by Mobley with the title “Sons of England” and is divided into three sections: “English by birth” (Dowland, Arne and Purcell), “English by choice” (Handel, Geminiani and other migrant composers) and “English by circumstance” (the formerly enslaved Sancho).

After Sancho’s parents died in the Spanish colony of New Granada, he was taken, aged two, by his owner to London, where he was given to three sisters in Greenwich and kept in servitude to the age of 20. A chance meeting with the Duke of Montagu led to his education, contacts with other members of the aristocracy and artistic circles, and finally ownership of his own shop in Mayfair. As a property-owner, Sancho had the right to vote, which he exercised in 1774 and 1780. On the latter occasion he voted for Charles James Fox, campaigner for the abolition of slavery and a customer in his shop.

In one of his letters, Sancho laid out his view of English involvement in the slave trade: “I am sorry to observe that the practice of your country (which as a resident I love — and for its freedom — and for the blessings I enjoy in it) . . . has been uniformly wicked in the East — West-Indies — and even on the coast of Guinea. The grand object of English navigators — indeed of all Christian navigators — is money — money — money.”

It was in the Duke of Montagu’s cultured household that Sancho composed his music. Four volumes were published, a couple of them declaring on the title page “Composed by an African”. They comprise mixed dances, country dances and a collection of songs, including settings of words by the eminent Shakespearean actor David Garrick, a personal friend.

One of the first decisions faced by Williams in composing his work was whether to incorporate any of Sancho’s own music. He says he decided against it because it could cause confusion about what was Sancho’s and what his own, but since the work was commissioned by the period-instrument Academy of Ancient Music he wanted to give his score a Baroque feel.

“It is like period costume,” says Williams. Using the repeated figure of a ground bass, a form favoured by composers such as Purcell, could be deemed “a deliberate throwback to a period style. Knowing that I was writing for the AAM, I have borrowed a compositional technique and a certain amount of harmony to give the music a modern take on the Baroque period. I would like audiences to enjoy the experience of a period ensemble playing contemporary music — a rich seam.”

The text is taken from Miscellaneous Poems (1779) by Ewan Clark, a contemporary of Sancho. In two of his poems Clark paraphrases correspondence between Sancho and the Irish author Laurence Sterne on the inhumanity of the slave trade, and it is one of these that Williams chose to set. The style of the poetry is “typical of that era, effusive, ostentatious, like Bridgerton,” he says. “It reminds me of Alexander Pope, self-consciously aware of its own rhetoric. The poem is partly a biographical history of Sancho and tells of his rise through the power of education.”

By placing Sancho’s music alongside composers such as Purcell and Handel, Mobley aims to enrich our view of Baroque culture through the inclusion of a figure in many ways ahead of his time. “How many other composers of colour do you know who existed then?” he asks.

‘From Ignatius Sancho’, West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge, May 25, westroad.org; then Milton Court, London, May 30

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