Hello everyone! Have you seen that our Beethoven section has taken off and has already surpassed several other sections? Well, well....
Dear Xenakis, you speak of Bridgetower and Kreutzer; before taking news as true, as always let's look at the facts: Ferdinand Ries writes it in Notizien, page 82 (a note spotted in Thayer-Riemann, II, page 396) recounts having copied on the very morning of the concert, at a very early hour, the violin part of the first movement from the manuscript score (where the piano part was then only "noted here and there"); as far as the Andante is concerned, Bridgetower was forced to read it from the same score, as there had been no material time to copy it. We cannot believe too much what Bridgetower later reported in a specific note in the copy of the Sonata owned by him, that Beethoven would have welcomed with a warm explosion of joy the arpeggiated cadenza he improvised on the eighth bar of the first Presto, similar to that of the piano at bar 18. We do not know if the bizarre violinist also allowed himself other whims, more or less tasteful. But it is well worth believing that Beethoven then reviewed the Sonata before sending it to print and eventually introduced into it the amendments and modifications that, upon a more considered critical examination, appeared necessary after that first hurried performance, in which there was no time — and perhaps not even the precise will — to fix the music on paper in every detail. According to news that also dates back to Bridgetower, Beethoven had initially thought of dedicating the Sonata to him; but then, following a quarrel that arose between them "because of a girl," the matter went up in smoke and the dedication was transferred to Rudolph Kreutzer. Bridgetower was a born and bred windbag; this is the only source we have regarding this matter, and it comes from the only interested party: so I am not saying it is false: it is not reliable. A beautiful note, however, is found in a letter by Czerny: "Bridgetower was a mulatto and played in an extravagant way. During the performance of the sonata, people laughed at him" but I [mean] the sources: Thayer-Riemann II, page 395. Bridge must have played it at least 4 times, in mid-May 1803. However, since I see in the Kessler and Wielhorsky notebooks (October 1802) that Beethoven had already sketched everything out without knowing Mr. Bridgetower nor having re-met Mr. Kreutzer (B. had already met him in 1798 at the time of Bernadotte's approach). Second element: the only element we have regarding Kreutzer's judgment is Berlioz, who many years later, reporting Kreutzer's judgment that the Sonata was "outrageusement inintelligible," added that this reflected the opinion of ninety-nine percent of the musicians of Paris at the time (i.e., approximately around 1830). In reality, Berlioz, as a good Beethovenian, refutes the common opinion of his French colleagues. Phenomenal: Kreutzer dies in 1831 in Geneva, Berlioz publishes the article in 1832.... What do you say? Kreutzer in the dovecote, he cannot retort and Berlioz defends his idol. Still anecdotal, nineteenth-century and stale, which must be refuted word for word. But we will make it, guys, we will make it!!!
PS: Kreutzer played it, the sonata: Chantavoine, Beethoven, page 123 and Héctor Berlioz, preface to Voyage musical en Allemagne et en Italie, études sur Beethoven, Gluck et Weber, mélanges et nouvelles, Paris 1844)
