5th
George Bridgetower’s story doesn’t get much press.
There’s not a lot to tell, or at least, not a lot you can find.
Bridgetower, a biracial virtuoso violinist who lived in Europe in the early 1800s, was a celebrated musician on his way to becoming immortalized with a sonata written for him by Ludwig van Beethoven, the “Sonata per uno mulaticco lunattico.” But then, the two men had a falling-out over a woman, and Beethoven changed the name of the composition, which is known popularly as the “Kreutzer” sonata. Bridgetower, a victim of circumstance, became a footnote in music history.
Two centuries later, poet Rita Dove decided to expand that footnote in her book-length lyric, “Sonata Mulattica,” published earlier this year. The result of much research and an equal measure of imagination, “Sonata Mulattica” chronicles the life of a man for whom a career could be made or broken by his social standing.
