Chamber Music flute,
piano
SKU:
PR.114424240
Free
at Last!. Composed by
Adolphus Hailstork. Set
of Score and Parts.
Duration 11 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#114-42424. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.114424240).
ISBN
9781491137581. UPC:
680160691036.
THE
BONES OF MR. FORTUNE
(FREE AT LAST!) is an
11-minute concerto-like
work for solo flute
accompanied by symphonic
winds and percussion
– perfect to play
with band or with
orchestra, as well as
with the
composer’s own
piano reduction. The work
features lengthy
cadenzas, and
exhilarating dance-like
sections with the
ensemble. Hailstork
describes the historical
inspiration: Abused in
life and death, an
enslaved man (Mr.
Fortune) was owned by a
surgeon who preserved his
skeleton to study
anatomy. The bones
remained with the
doctor’s family
for generations, and were
given a proper burial
making national news in
2013, 215 years after Mr.
Fortune’s
death.
Abused in life
and death, an enslaved
man known as Mr. Fortune
was honored with an
elaborate funeral more
than 200 years after he
died in Connecticut.Mr.
Fortune was owned by Dr.
Preserved Porter on a
farm in Waterbury,
Connecticut. When Fortune
died in 1798, Porter, a
bone surgeon, preserved
his skeleton by having
the bones boiled to study
anatomy at a time when
cadavers for medical
study were
disproportionately taken
from slaves, servants and
prisoners.One of
Porter’s
descendants gave the
skeleton in 1933 to
Mattatuck Museum in
Waterbury, where it was
displayed from the 1940s
until 1970. The
descendant referred to
the slave as
“Larry†and
his name was forgotten at
the time.A study by
forensic anthropologists
at the Quinnipiac
University School of
Medicine concluded that
Fortune was about 5 feet
5 inches tall and died at
around 55 years old. He
suffered a number of
painful ailments,
including a fracture in
his left hand, a severe
ankle sprain and lower
back pain. “He was
an individual who was in
considerable
distress,†a
forensic professor,
Richard Gonzalez said.I
was taken by the bizarre
story of Mr. Fortune and
decided to use it as the
stimulus for this
work.
