United States ‘Visionary Sounds’ from the Orchestra of St. Luke’s – Dove, Beethoven: Rita Dove (reader), Jesse Mills (violin), Rieko Aizawa (piano). Orchestra of St. Luke’s. DiMenna Center, New York, 29.11.2022. (RP)
Dove – Selections from Sonata Mulattica
Beethoven – Violin Sonata No.9 in A significant, Op.47, ‘Kreutzer’
Napoleon wasn’t the one one who had a dedication retracted in a match of rage by Beethoven. Violinist George Bridgetower additionally deserves that doubtful honor. This fascinating story served as the premise for the primary occasion within the Orchestra of St. Luke’s new, interdisciplinary sequence entitled ‘Visionary Sounds’, with Pulitzer Prize-winning and former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, violinist Jesse Mills and pianist Rieko Aizawa.
Born in Poland in 1778, Bridgetower’s father was from the Caribbean, though he styled himself as an African prince. His mom was from Swabia, now in southwestern Germany, and was described as a ‘Polish lady of quality’. The senior Bridgetower was a servant within the family of Nikolaus I, Prince Esterházy, who was the patron of Joseph Haydn. It was fertile floor for his son’s musical abilities to be found and nurtured.
Despite his particular person accomplishments as a musician, George Bridgetower is finest recognized for his affiliation with Beethoven, who praised the younger man as ‘a very capable virtuoso who has a complete command of his instrument’. Beethoven composed the Violin Sonata No.9 for Bridgetower, and devoted it to him with an inscription, ‘Sonata mulattica composta per il mullato’. Practically sight-reading the violin half, Bridgetower carried out the premiere in Vienna in 1803.
Shortly after that, whereas consuming with Beethoven, Bridgetower apparently insulted a girl who held a spot within the composer’s affections. In a pique of rage, Beethoven rescinded the sonata’s dedication to Bridgetower and bestowed it as a substitute on Rodolphe Kreutzer, one of many foremost violin virtuosos of the period. Kreutzer didn’t significantly admire Beethoven’s music, deemed the sonata inconceivable to play and by no means carried out it.
Dove was drawn to Bridgetower’s story after watching Immortal Beloved, the 1994 movie on the lifetime of Beethoven through which the violinist makes an look. Her curiosity developed right into a close to obsession with Bridgetower that culminated in Sonata Mulattica: A Life in Five Movements and a Short Play. Published in 2009, Sonata Mulattica is a book-length narrative that fleshes out Bridgetower’s exceptional story. Although Dove did analysis into his life, there’s scant historic element, and many of the poems are drawn from her creativeness.
Dove is a singer and musician (her instrument was the cello) and acknowledges that she likes to work with musicians. Her voice is the right instrument to precise the inherent lyricism and musicality in her poems. Much of what she has to say is conveyed with a way of surprise, however irony creeps in when she speaks of the experiences of a mixed-race man who, for a quick time, was on the pinnacle of European musical life.
Placed between Dove’s studying of her poems have been the three actions of the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata carried out by violinist Jesse Mills and pianist Reiko Aizawa. They are the co-founders of the Horszowski Trio and Duo Prism, a violin-piano duo. The trio was named after the famend pianist and pedagogue Mieczyslaw Horszowski, who taught for a few years on the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Aizawa was his final scholar.
As longtime musical companions, Mills and Aizawa are completely in sync with one another. Mills dispatched the formidable technical challenges of the sonata with disarming ease. His was an expressive, lyrical studying, which contrasted with Aizawa’s extra muscular, dramatic strategy. In the center motion, steadiness was a difficulty when Mills’s delicate taking part in was overpowered by the piano.
Musical organizations and performers in all places are experimenting with methods to draw and domesticate new audiences. There is a human story behind each murals, and that of the ‘Kreutzer’ is extra fascinating than many. Whether you have been a devotee of Dove’s poems, a lover of Beethoven’s music or simply among the many curious, this version of ‘Visionary Sounds’ was an particularly satisfying and rewarding expertise.
Rick Perdian