two different violinists, both men.

It is said that he first inscribed it to George Augustus Polgreen
Bridgetower, a mulatto violinist, who, being lucky enough to be born in
Europe, was not ostracised from paleface society. This can be only too
well proved by the fact that Beethoven--who spelled the man's name
"Brischdower"--after dedicating the sonata to him, found that the
Africo-European had been his successful rival in one of those
numberless flirtations of his, in which Beethoven always came out
second. Indignant at his dusky rival's success, Beethoven erased his
name from the title-page and substituted that of Rudolphe Kreutzer. The
curious thing about this great piece of music, known to fame as the
"Kreutzer Sonata," is that Beethoven had never seen Kreutzer, and that
Kreutzer never played the sonata.

I have not discovered whether or no Kreutzer was married; he probably
was, for he died insane. A German composer, Conradin Kreutzer, with
whom he might be confused, had a daughter whom he trained as a singer.
As for Bridgetower, he married and had a daughter.

But speaking of violinists, what would become of them if there never
had been makers of violins, especially such luthiers as the Amati? Yet
all I know of the Amati is that they formed a dynasty, and doubtless
fell in love on occasion, though how, or when, I do not learn.

The great Antonio Stradivari, however, began his love-making like David
Copperfield, by falling in love with a woman ten years his senior, when
he was only seventeen. She was Francesca Capra; her husband had been
assassinated three years before, leaving her a child. The boy
Stradivari and the widow were married July 4, 1667, and on December
23d, a daughter named Julia was born. Francesca bore Stradivari six
children. Her second child was a son named after her, Francesco; but
Francesco died in infancy, and the name, in spite of the omen, was
given to the next son, who followed his father's profession, but never
married. The next child was a daughter, who died a spinster; the next
was a son, who became a priest, and the next a son, who died a
bachelor. The failure of all their children to marry does not indicate
a particularly happy home-life, but this is mere speculation. We only
know that Stradivari's first wife died, after a marriage lasting
thirty-four years.

A year and a half later Stradivari married a girl fifteen years his
junior; Antonia Zambelli was, indeed, born the very year