George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower was born on 11 October 1778 in Biała Podlaska, Poland, the son of a West Indian father, who worked in the household of Prince Esterházy, Haydn's patron, and a German-Polish mother.
A child prodigy, Bridgetower made his concert debut on the violin in Paris in 1789 at the age of ten and soon moved to England, where by his teens he had caught the attention of the Prince Regent, later King George IV, who oversaw his continuing musical education.
In 1803 Bridgetower travelled to Vienna, where he was introduced to Ludwig van Beethoven, who was so impressed by his playing that he dedicated his new Violin Sonata No. 9 to him and premiered it with Bridgetower on violin at the Augarten Concert Hall that May.
Following a personal falling-out, reportedly over a woman, Beethoven angrily rededicated the work to violinist Rudolphe Kreutzer, who never performed it, and it has been known ever since as the Kreutzer Sonata rather than the Bridgetower Sonata.
Bridgetower returned to London, was elected to the Royal Society of Musicians in 1807, continued composing and performing for decades, and died in London in 1860, his contribution to one of classical music's most celebrated works largely forgotten until recent scholarship, including Rita Dove's poetry collection Sonata Mulattica, restored his story.
- Original dedicatee and premiere performer of Beethoven's Violin Sonata No. 9
- Child prodigy who debuted as a concert violinist at age ten
- Elected to the Royal Society of Musicians, 1807
- Subject of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove's 2009 collection Sonata Mulattica
- A falling-out can erase a legacy for centuries. Bridgetower's central role in the Kreutzer Sonata's creation was largely written out of history after his dispute with Beethoven.
- Rediscovery can restore what was lost. Modern scholarship and works like Sonata Mulattica have brought Bridgetower's story back into public memory.