Forget for a moment the musical notations inked on the page as Ludwig van Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata comes across as something of a mess. The 40-minute piece for piano and violin was originally dedicated to George Bridgetower, a British composer and musician of African descent, who ran afoul of Beethoven and had his name stricken from the sonata. Apparently the backup namesake, violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, wasn’t terribly fond of the piece. But for Bridgetower the retitling of the composition was just part of a grander historical slight.
“He’s always been this figure who was relegated to a footnote in any Beethoven biography,” says composer Kyle Rivera. “The sonata was dedicated to him, and then his name was actually crossed out of the manuscript. So he’s this nebulous mystery: who he was, what his life was like, what he means to music history. My original project was to try to bring one of his works back to life. To resurrect his music in an orchestral setting.”
Perhaps not surprisingly, considering the way Bridgetower has been regarded historically, Rivera’s piece honoring the composer, “Bridgetower Variations,” endured its own fits and starts. A short piece — about two minutes — Rivera’s composition was commissioned by the Houston Symphony last year. But it was struck from a program when a performance was shortened because of limited rehearsal time due to Hurricane Nicholas last year.
“It ended up leading to something better,” Rivera says. “In the long run, it was a good thing.”
Rivera’s piece makes its world premiere on March 18 as part of the Houston Symphony’s Andrés Fest, a multi-weekend event celebrating the tenure of the soon departing music director Andrés Orozco-Estrada.
Following the disappointment of having his original piece cut, Rivera found solace when Orozco-Estrada suggested they find a way to bring it back. “It went from a two-minute orchestral arrangement to something more substantial,” Rivera says. “I was able to work on these variations in a cross-time connection.
“A lot has changed in music history between the classical period and now. So I tried to write for the same orchestra type that he’d have written for back then. As time went on, orchestras got bigger and bigger. This is a smaller piece, taking that classical sound and translate it into something contemporary using some techniques we’d use in modern music. In Bridgetower’s days, the string player would just use the hair of the bow, but now they play the wood, too. The timpani, they don’t just play the top, but the sides, too. I’m trying to explore different sounds possible in Bridgetower’s day, but not in a conventional way.”
For Rivera, the resurrection of the piece keeps him further connected with the Houston Symphony, an organization he describes as formative for him. A Boston native, he was living in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina flooded the city. His family relocated to Houston, where he took up viola and was drawn to the symphony. Shortly before graduating high school, he began composing, which he pursued further at the University of Houston. In 2019 he participated in the symphony’s Resilient Sounds concert.
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