“Six months after Beethoven contemplated suicide, confessing his despair over his increasing deafness in the 1802 document known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, he was carousing in taverns with a charismatic new comrade, George Polgreen Bridgetower,” writes Patricia Morrisroe in Friday’s (9/4) New York Times. “This biracial violinist had recently arrived in Vienna, and inspired one of Beethoven’s most famous and passionate pieces, the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata…. Like so many Black artists prominent in their lifetimes, he has been largely forgotten…. Bridgetower was born on Aug. 13, 1778, in eastern Poland, and christened Hieronymus Hyppolitus de Augustus. His father, Joanis Fredericus de Augustus, was of African descent; his mother, Maria Schmid, was German-Polish…. Beethoven and Bridgetower took the stage for the morning concert [of the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata in May 1803], having never rehearsed the piece. Bridgetower was sight-reading…. At one point, Bridgetower surprised Beethoven by imitating and then expanding on a short piano cadenza in the first movement. Beethoven, jumping up, hugged him, crying, ‘My dear boy! Once more!’ … It’s unknown if Bridgetower ever played the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata again…. All we know is that on May 24, 1803, two brilliant performers dazzled a crowd with their high-wire virtuosity. One of them entered history.”
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