Musical Bouquet. No. 276. Donna Maria Martinez Morena – Rosa Lee; & Sing Darkies Sing (Solos & Choruses) as Sung by the Ethiopian Serenaders.
London: Musical Bouquet Office, 192 High Holborn; J. Allen, 20 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row, [c. 1850]. Folio sheet music, 4 pp, 9 ½ x 13 ¼ inches. Lithographed title with portrait illustration. Minor edge wear and light toning; very good. Item #List3617
An early printed musical tribute to the Afro-Cuban singer Donna Maria Martinez Morena, one of the earliest Black vocalists to achieve international recognition on the European stage. Morena was born in Havana to free Black parents and recognized early for her musical ability and intellectual promise. She was sent to Spain for formal study at Málaga and later admitted to the Royal Musical Conservatory of Madrid under the patronage of Queen Christina. By the mid-nineteenth century she was appearing in prominent theaters in Paris and London and was widely admired for the purity and range of her voice. Contemporary commentators sometimes referred to her as “The Black Malibran,” comparing her to the celebrated Spanish soprano Maria Malibran, while others regarded her as one of the few singers capable of rivaling the famed Swedish soprano Jenny Lind.
The lithographed title page depicts Morena seated with a guitar, framed by romantic landscape vignettes, and identifies her beneath the portrait. The music included in the issue reflects the complex musical culture of the period. The second song printed here, “Rosa Lee; or Don’t Be Foolish Joe,” composed by Jonathan Blewitt, appears alongside “Sing Darkies Sing,” composed by Stephen Glover and presented as sung by the Ethiopian Serenaders, one of the most prominent blackface minstrel troupes performing in Britain and the United States during the 1840s and 1850s. The juxtaposition of a portrait honoring a distinguished Black concert singer with minstrel repertoire illustrates the contradictory environment in which genuine Black musical achievement and racialized stage caricature circulated simultaneously in nineteenth-century popular entertainment.
This piece forms number 276 of the Musical Bouquet, a London sheet-music serial begun in 1848 and eventually extending to more than 8,000 numbers. Early issues such as the present example were issued during the formative years of the series and represent some of the earliest numbers in the long-running publication. Complete at four pages. OCLC 726894236, noting a copy at the Levy collection at Johns Hopkins.
Price: $300.00