Bridgetower, George (Auguste Polgreen)
Bridgetower, George (Auguste Polgreen)
Bridgetower, George (Auguste Polgreen), violinist; b. Biala, Poland, Oct. 11, 1778; d. Peckham, Surrey, Feb. 28, 1860. His father was an Abyssinian; his mother, of Polish extraction. He studied with Giornovi-chi. As a youth he went to England and entered the service of the Prince of Wales. In 1791, at the age of 13, he played in the violin section of the Haydn-Salomon Concerts in London. On Oct. 4, 1807, he was elected to the membership of the Royal Soc. of Musicians in London. In 1811 he received his Bachelor of Music degree from Cambridge Univ. From about 1829 to 1843 he resided mostly in Paris and Rome, eventually returning to England, where he married and settled in Surrey. His name is historically important because of his association with Beethoven; it was Bridgetower who gave the first performance, from MS, of the Kreutzer Sonata, with Beethoven himself at the piano, in Vienna on May 24, 1803. Beethoven spelled his name in a German orthography as Brischdower.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire