George Bridgetower

George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (11 October 1778 – 29 February 1860) was a British musician. He was a virtuoso violinist, who lived in England for much of his life.[1] His playing impressed Beethoven, who made Bridgetower the original dedicatee of his Kreutzer Sonata after they presented its premiere performance.

George Bridgetower by Henry Edridge, 1790
George Bridgetower, unsigned watercolour, 1800.

Early career

George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower was born on 11 October 1778, in Biała Podlaska , Poland,[2] where his father worked for Prince Hieronim Wincenty Radziwiłł. He was baptised Hieronimo Hyppolito de Augusto on 11 October 1778. His father, John Frederick Bridgetower, was probably a West Indian (possibly from Barbados), although he also claimed to be an African prince, as stated in George's baptismal record. From 1779 John Frederick was a servant of the Hungarian Prince Esterházy, the patron of Joseph Haydn. George’s mother, Maria Anna Ursula Schimdt, was from Germany, and was probably a domestic worker in the household of Sophie von Thurn und Taxis, who married Prince Hieronim Wincenty Radziwiłł in 1775. George moved to London at an early age and was performing as a violin soloist at the Drury Lane Theatre by the age of ten.[3]

He exhibited considerable talent while still a child and gave successful violin concerts in Paris, London, Bath and Bristol in 1789. In 1791, the British Prince Regent, the future King George IV, took an interest in him and oversaw his musical education. At the Prince's direction, he studied under François-Hippolyte Barthélémon, the leader of the Royal Opera, with Croatian-Italian composer Giovanni Giornovichi, and with Thomas Attwood, organist at St Paul's Cathedral and professor at the Royal Academy of Music. Bridgetower performed in around 50 concerts in London theatres, including Covent Garden, Drury Lane and the Haymarket Theatre, between 1789 and 1799, and he was employed by the Prince to perform in his orchestra in Brighton and London. In the spring of 1789, Bridgetower performed to great acclaim at the Abbaye de Panthemont in Paris, with Thomas Jefferson and his family in attendance.

Relations with Beethoven

He was given leave to visit his mother and brother, Friedrich Joseph Bridgetower, (a cellist) in Dresden, in 1802 and he gave concerts there as well. He visited Vienna later in 1803, where he performed with Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven was impressed with his talent and dedicated his Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major (Op.47) to Bridgetower, with the jocular dedication "Sonata mulattica composta per il mulatto Brischdauer, gran pazzo e compositore mulattico" ("Mulatto sonata composed for the mulatto Bridgetower, great lunatic and mulatto composer").[4] Though Beethoven had barely completed the composition, the piece received its first public performance at a concert in the Augarten on 24 May 1803, with Beethoven on pianoforte and Bridgetower on violin. Bridgetower had to read the violin part of the second movement from Beethoven's copy, over his shoulder. He made a slight amendment to his part, which Beethoven gratefully accepted, jumping up to say "Noch einmal, mein lieber Bursch!" ("Once more, my dear fellow!"). Beethoven also presented Bridgetower with his tuning fork, now held by the British Library. The pair fell out soon afterwards, after Bridgetower insulted a woman who turned out to be Beethoven's friend; Beethoven broke off all relations with Bridgetower and changed the dedication of the new violin sonata to the violin virtuoso Rudolphe Kreutzer, who never played it, saying that it had already been performed once and was too difficult. The piece is now known as the Kreutzer Sonata.

Return to England

Bridgetower returned to England, where he married Mary Leech Leeke in 1816 and continued his musical career, teaching and performing. He was elected to the Royal Society of Musicians on 4 October 1807, and attended Trinity Hall, Cambridge where he earned the degree of Bachelor of Music in June 1811.[5] He performed in the Philharmonic Society (later to become the Royal Philharmonic Society) of London's first season in 1813, leading the performance of Beethoven's Quintet.[6] He later travelled abroad, particularly to Italy, where his daughter lived. He died in Peckham in south London, leaving his estate of £1,000 to his deceased wife's sister. The house was demolished in 1970. He is buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.[4]

Trivia

Bridgetower's great-great-nephew, John Frederick Wood (1879-1955), founded the first purpose-built cinema in Liverpool, the Bedford Hall, in 1908.[7] One of Wood's companies was known as Bridgetower Cinema Supplies Ltd. Wood was the great-grandson of Friedrich Joseph Bridgetower (1782-1813), George Bridgetower's younger brother.[8]

Compositions

Bridgetower's own compositions include Diatonica armonica for piano (London, 1812) and Henry: A ballad for medium voice and piano (London). A list of his compositions may be found in a 1990 article by Dominique-Rene de Lerma.[9]

Legacy

Bridgetower appears as a character in the 1994 film Immortal Beloved, where he is shown playing the Kreutzer Sonata while Beethoven watches. The character of Bridgetower, played by Black violinist Everton Nelson, was described in the film as being of African heritage.

In the British film A Mulatto Song (1996), directed by Topher Campbell, Colin McFarlane was cast as Frederick DeAugust (Bridgetower’s father), Cole Mejias as the young Bridgetower, and Everton Nelson as the adult Bridgetower.[10]

A book, Sonata Mulattica by Rita Dove, the Pulitzer Prize-winning former United States poet laureate, was published in 2009.[11][12]

A short animation, Bridgetower, directed by Jason Young, features Chris Rochester as George Bridgetower and Stefano Leonardi as Beethoven.[13]

A jazz opera entitled Bridgetower - A Fable of 1807, by Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips, was commissioned by the City of London Corporation for the 2007 City of London Festival to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the first parliamentary bill to abolish slavery.[14] The role of Bridgetower was played by Cleveland Watkiss.[15]

References
  1. Wight, C. "Bridgetower's early years". Bl.uk. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  2. George Grove and Simon McVeigh. "Bridgetower, George Polgreen." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online
  3. London Docklands Museum, artefact notes
  4. Morrisroe, Patricia (4 September 2020). "The Black Violinist Who Inspired Beethoven". New York Times. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  5. "Bridgetower, George Augustus Polgreen (BRGT811GA)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  6. "Son of an African Prince - Music blog". blogs.bl.uk.
  7. The Bioscope, 3 October 1928, p27
  8. The Bioscope, 27 January 1916, p55
  9. de Lerma, Dominique-René (1990). "Black composers in Europe: A works list". Black Music Research Journal. 10 (2): 275-334 [279]. doi:10.2307/779389. JSTOR 779389.
  10. "A Mulatto Song". IMDb.com. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  11. Lee, Felicia R. (2 April 2009). "Poet's Muse: A Footnote to Beethoven". New York Times.
  12. Dove, Rita (2009). Sonata Mulattica. A Life in Five Movements and a Short Play. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-393-07008-8.
  13. Bridgetower, IMDb.com
  14. "Bridgetower - A Fable of 1807. A new jazz opera by Julian Joseph and Mike Phillips". Julianjoseph.com. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
  15. Bridgetower - A Fable of 1807, Cast list Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine.
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