Transcript of Rita Dove
Rita Dove: George Bridgetower was a prodigy mixed race violinist who was born in 1780, lived full 80 years actually, and his claim to fame or the fame that was meant to be his and then wasn’t really, was that he had gone to Vienna as a young man in his twenties, met Beethoven and Beethoven composed a sonata for him, a violin sonata, which he premiered with Beethoven at the piano, and Beethoven had dedicated to him. And then they got into an argument over a girl. That’s all we know. And Beethoven destroyed the dedication and what we know is the “Kreutzer Sonata” really should’ve been called the “Bridgetower Sonata.” But what fascinated me about the story was that there was this mixed race person who lived and thrived during this time in England and in Vienna, all across Europe. His father called himself an African prince. His mother was born somewhere near modern day Poland. And my question was, “How did he come to be and how did he live and why don’t we know any more about him?” And that began my quest.
Jo Reed: Can you read a passage from Sonata Mulattica for us?
Rita Dove: Sure, let me say that when I did begin trying to write poems I realized that one of my biggest fears or stumbling blocks actually was to write in the persona of Beethoven. Because Beethoven is, of course, that marble bust on the piano that we all labored under, and he’s an icon, so how dare I presume to write in his voice? So the first few poems that I wrote were actually Beethoven’s poems, and so I’ll read you one of his. This is one where he’s going deaf and he has gone off into the country to recover, according to doctor’s orders, sent him out to the fresh air, thought that would cure his deafness. And he has just decided to come back to Vienna. It’s right before he meets Bridgetower.
"Ludwig Van Beethoven’s Return to Vienna"
Three miles from my adopted city
lies a village where I came to peace.
The world there was a calm place,
even the great Danube no more
than a pale ribbon tossed onto the landscape
by a girl's careless hand. Into this stillness
I had been ordered to recover.
The hills were gold with late summer;
my rooms were two, plus a small kitchen,
situated upstairs in the back of a cottage
at the end of the Herrengasse.
From my window I could see onto the courtyard
where a linden tree twined skyward—
leafy umbilicus canted toward light,
warped in the very act of yearning—
and I would feed on the sun as if that alone
would dismantle the silence around me.
At first I raged. Then music raged in me,
rising so swiftly I could not write quickly enough
to ease the roiling. I would stop
to light a lamp, and whatever I'd missed—
larks flying to nest, church bells, the shepherd's
home-toward-evening song—rushed in, and I
would rage again.
I am by nature a conflagration;
I would rather leap
than sit and be looked at.
So when my proud city spread
her gypsy skirts, I reentered,
burning towards her greater, constant light.
Call me rough, ill-tempered, slovenly—I tell you,
every tenderness I have ever known
has been nothing
but thwarted violence, an ache
so permanent and deep, the lightest touch
awakens it. . . . It is impossible
to care enough. I have returned
with a second Symphony
and 15 Piano Variations
which I've named Prometheus,
after the rogue Titan, the half-a-god
who knew the worst sin is to take
what cannot be given back.
I smile and bow, and the world is loud.
And though I dare not lean in to shout
Can't you see that I'm deaf?—
I also cannot stop listening.
