JOSEPH ANTONIO EMIDY AN AFRICAN COMPOSER (Additans)(Work In Progres)
Very few know oF Joseph A EmidyLet me in this work inform you educate
You my dear reader - sit your self down
Comfortably - I will begin my story - history
Ov Joseph life the middle part of his life & times
Joseph were taking as a slave
Born in West Africa in about 1775
Taken as a slave on the coast Guinea
By the Portuguese
Spent his early years as slave in Brazil
His slave master taught Joseph to play
The fiddle - Joseph - were a natural
Josephs reputation so had in demand
He were sent to Portugal - too Lisbon
Where he joined The Lisbon Opera Orchestra
He soon had a reputation for being
Not just rather good at playing the violin
THAT HE WERE IN AFFECT AMAZING! & thats no lie!
Admiral Sir Edward of The British Royal Navy ship heard
The reputation of a black - by now a former slave
Who plaid the violin & the viola like no white man
Ever could!
The admiral went to the opera - to find out for himself
Heard - listen to Joseph play
He were so very impressed by the black mans playing
The violin - so heard just our good Joseph were
He decided that he the black slave was just what
The ships crew needed - to dance too - so exaseising
That admiral decided to have the fiddle playing slave
Press ganged - kidnapped that is - and taken onboard
His ship The Indefatigable - at anchor just off the shore
Ov Lisbon
For seven years Joseph served as a fiddler entertaning - exasiseing
The ships crew of The Indefatigable - he were their personal trainer - musically
Speaking that is
After seven years paid off - dump at Falmouth - Cornwall - in the south west of England
Joseph - found him self in a new situation that could go bad could go bad
A strange country a strange language - the people just that people - nothing Strange
He played his violin in the streets ov Falmouth - were heard listand too
The way he played his violin - among those who heard & listand to Joseph Playing the violin were James Silk Buckingham - an anti-slavery activist
Soon Joseph - were a member of The Truro Philharmonic Orchestra
As well as playing in the orchestra - Joseph - talt the violin - and Joseph compost
Joseph reputation reached London - Joseph - were giving a hearing in London
Town critics who were duly empressde
Joseph impressed the notoriety of the music establishment ov London
But James Silk Buckingham prevailed upon Joseph to remain in Truro
James were worrying that Joseph would suffer racism due to his colour
His history - his slave past - Londons loss - Cornwalls gain
Not just Cornwalls gain - the whole South Wests gained in having Joseph
Among them
An advert put into a local paper gives the reader some idea of Josephs work
In Cornwall & surrounding towns it read: Violin - Tenor - Bass-Viol - Guitar
The Spanish Guitar - All Taught - By Joseph
Joseph lived in Cornwall for thirty years marred a local woman they had children
Together
How much of the works Joseph composed survived I can not say just few I'm Thinking
This a true history of just one man - there are more story's worth the telling
It is rather Ironic that Joseph lived his final years as a Freeman in Cornwall
Back in the 1500's. The Turks used call in on the coastal towns of Cornwall
to take the local Cornish people as slaves and sale them into slavery back in Turkey. King Henry did nothing to stop that nothing at all!
Ken D Williams
The Dyslexic Wordsmith Ov Thanet
Poetry by ken d williams
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Written on 2020-12-13 at 12:29
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