Beethoven's 'Bridgetower Sonata?

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1803, violinist George Polgreen Bridgetower, 33, and pianist and composer Ludwig van Beethoven, 32, gave the first performance in Vienna of a new sonata for violin and piano, a chamber work now regarded as one of Beethoven’s greatest.

At the first rehearsal, Bridgetower had to read from Beethoven’s manuscript score — no easy task considering Beethoven’s poor penmanship — and at one point felt compelled to improvise a passage, which so enchanted Beethoven that he added Bridgetower’s improvisation to his score. In fact, the two young men became fast friends, and were inseparable for a time.

Bridgetower was an English violin virtuoso born in Poland of a European mother and an African father. His Viennese friendship with Beethoven came to a sudden end, he later claimed, when the two men became interested in the same young lady.

And so, even though it should be known as the Bridgetower Sonata, when this music was published as Beethoven’s Op. 47, Beethoven dedicated the music to another contemporary virtuoso, a French violinist named Kreutzer, who apparently never performed it. Despite that fact, to this day, the work is known as Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata.

Music Played in Today's Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Violin Sonata No. 9 (Kreutzer); Pamela Frank, violin; Claude Frank, piano; MusicMasters 67087

On This Day

Births

• 1886 - French conductor and composer conductor Paul Paray, in Le Tréport

• 1903 - Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (Gregorian date: June 6)

• 1936 - American composer Harold Budd, in Los Angeles

• 1941 - American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman), in Duluth, Minnesota

Deaths

• 1968 - American composer Bernard Rogers, 75, in Rochester, New York

• 1974 - American composer Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, 75, in New York City

• 1996 - American composer Jacob Druckman, 67, in New Haven, Connecticut

Premieres

• 1803 - Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 9 (Kreutzer Sonata), in Vienna, with violinist George Bridgetower and Beethoven at the piano

• 1810 - Beethoven: incidental music for Goethe’s play Egmont, in Vienna at the Hofburg Theater

• 1833 - Marschner: opera Hans Heiling, in Berlin at the Königliches Opernhaus

• 1899 - Massenet: Cendrillon, in Paris

• 1906 - Delius: Sea Drift (to a text by Walt Whitman, in Essen, Germany

• 1911 - Elgar: Symphony No. 2, at the London Festival with the Queen’s Hall Orchestra conducted by the composer

• 1918 - Bartók: opera Bluebeard’s Castle, at the Budapest Opera

• 1939 - Elliott Carter: Pocahontas Ballet, at the Martin Beck Theater in New York City, with an orchestra conducted by Fritz Kitzinger. Following Carter’s ballet, the New York premiere of Copland’s ballet Billy the Kid was presented (Copland's ballet had been premiered in Chicago on October 16, 1938).

• 1948 - John Gay: The Beggar’s Opera arranged by Benjamin Britten, in Cambridge

• 1970 - Panufnik: Universal Prayer, at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City, Leopold Stokowski conducting