1,000 Days of Piano - Day 85: Gossip

Boredom leads to gossip. Perhaps it is Internet gossip that scholars speculate that Beethoven may not have written the two Sonatinas in G Major and in F Major...or perhaps not. That is a thing that scholars do. They also doubt whether Shakespeare wrote all those famous plays. (Different scholars, of course.)

It is also likely not gossip that Beethoven originally dedicated his Kreutzer violin Sonata to George Bridgetower, a virtuoso violinist of African and European ancestry. The ‘mulaticco lunattico’ as Beethoven described him on the original manuscript from which he performed, so impressed Beethoven that he leapt up to embrace Bridgetower in the middle of the performance. The two were friends until they had a falling out, possibly over a woman. (That is the gossipy part.) Beethoven withdrew both the dedication of his A Major violin Sonata and his friendship from Bridgetower, and the two never met again. Genius is evidently not immune to drama.