“Kyle Rivera’s composition ‘Bridgetower Variations’ will make its world premiere Friday during the Houston Symphony’s ‘Andrés Fest’ ” honoring outgoing Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada, writes Andrew Dansby in Monday’s (3/14) Houston Chronicle. “Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata … for piano and violin was originally dedicated to George Bridgetower, a British composer and musician of African descent, who ran afoul of Beethoven and had his name stricken from the sonata…. For Bridgetower, the retitling of the composition was just part of a grander historical slight. ‘He’s always been this figure who was relegated to a footnote in any Beethoven biography,’ says … Rivera.… Rivera used Rachmaninoff as a point of reference for his composition…. His choice of Bridgetower was deliberate: a composer of color who was essentially relegated to the fringes of music history…. Little of Bridgetower’s composed music has survived the centuries. But Rivera used his ‘Henry, A Ballad’ from 1812 as an entry point. ‘I can’t resurrect the pieces that were lost,’ he says…. ‘I can just hope this helps people know his name and hopefully something like this doesn’t happen in the future…. He was a violinist and a composer who inspired Beethoven. There aren’t many people in history who could claim that.’ ”
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