Scan 34
Celebrated violinists, past and present; ("The Strad" library), 1897
6 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. Printed page 22. See the scan on archive.org.
1best means of study for the rising young violinist, Kreutzer wrote sixteen or more concertos, a number of duets, trios, and quartets, solos, sonatas, etc.
3In connection with this master may be mentioned the story of the now famous "Kreutzer Sonata." It is a wide-spread error that Beethoven wrote the sonata especially for Kreutzer. The work was (or is said to have been) written for a young and now forgotten player. Hanslick, in the Neue Freie Presse says:—"The violinist was Bridgetower, a mulatto of somewhat doubtful antecedents, the son of an African and a European. Born in Poland in 1780, he received his first instruction in music in England, and when only ten he created some sensation by his extraordinary performance. Under the patronage of the Prince of Wales he gave a series of concerts together with a young Viennese named Franz Clement. Bridgetower soon became the lion of the London season; he was always addressed as the 'Young Abyssinian Prince.' In 1803 he went to Vienna, where he often came in contact with Beethoven, who was willing to compose a Sonata especially for him, and to play it with him in public. This was the Sonata opus 47. Beethoven played it from manuscript with Bridgetower on the 17th or 20th May, 1803, at the latter's concerts in the Augarten. It is remarkable that from that time no more was heard of the artist, who after so brilliant a beginning, vanished into oblivion."* Bridgetower is thought to have died in London between 1840 and 1850. According to Czerny his gestures while playing were so grotesque that it was impossible to look at him without laughing.
5* The above account is erroneous in several particulars which are peculiarly interesting to the English. It was Bridgetower's father who was known as the "Abyssinian Prince." The Kreutzer Sonata was not written for Bridgetower, for part of it was in existence before the violinist had been to Vienna. Far from disappearing from mortal ken, Bridgetower returned to England and graduated Mus. Bac. at Cambridge in 1811. Beethoven used to call him Brischdower. An account of the first performance of the sonata will be found in Thayer's Beethoven.
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