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Scan 44
The Violin Music Of Beethoven, 1902
4 lines. Read by computer on 18 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1manner in which the themes are given to each instrument in turn.
3We come now to the violin sonata which is known the best of all to concert goers, the famous "Kreutzer," Op. 47, and certainly no violin sonata deserves so well such frequent repetition and wide-spread popularity as this perennially fresh inspiration of Beethoven. Rodolphe Kreutzer (born Versailles, 1766, died Geneva, 1831) was violin professor of the newly formed Paris Conservatoire in Beethoven's time. He was a fairly prolific composer, as well as a celebrated violin virtuoso;—nineteen concertos, two double concertos, fifteen string quartets, etc., were written by him, but the celebrated Forty Studies for the violin and the dedication we are now alluding to, alone keep his memory fresh. He succeeded Rode as solo violinist at the Grand Opera, and was chamber musician to the first Napoleon. Beethoven made his acquaintance in 1802, when Kreutzer visited Vienna in the suite of General Bernardotte, Ambassador of Bonaparte. Hector Berlioz remarks concerning this dedication, "Il faut convenir que l'hommage était bien adressé. Aussi le célèbre violon ne pent-il jamais se décider à jouer cette composition outrageusement inintelligible." It seems incredible that a composer whose above-mentioned Forty Studies are such an excellent preparation to Beethoven's works, should fail to understand and appreciate the sonata and the honour done him; but the situation is by no means singular. Beethoven's pupil, Ferdinand Ries, says that the sonata was originally written for Bridgetower. George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower, to give him his full name, was partly African, partly Polish, or German by birth, domiciled in London, and a member of Salomon's orchestra. He was known in musical circles as the "Abyssinian Prince." He evidently had an immense opinion of his own importance, for he left a note on his copy of the work to the effect that Beethoven was so delighted with a Cadenza introduced by him in the ninth bar of the Presto (in imitation of the piano cadenza in the eighteenth bar), that he jumped up from his seat and
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