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When we talk about George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (1778–1860) we tend to leap from one dazzling highlight to another: the child prodigy who, at age ten, performed a Viotti concerto in Paris before an audience that included Thomas Jefferson, to the electrifying 1803 Vienna premiere of Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9 in A major, Op. 47—the fiery work later rededicated as the “Kreutzer” Sonata after the famous falling-out between the two musicians.

The Augarten was not merely a picturesque garden. Established as a public park in 1775 by Emperor Joseph II, it was one of the first civic green spaces in Europe. At its entrance, an inscription still proclaims it a place “Allen Menschen gewidmeter Erlustigungs-Ort von ihrem Schätzer.” The translation is eloquent: Place of recreation dedicated to all people by their admirer.

The official story says his father migrated with him and his brother Frederick Jr., eventually landing as musicians in the House of Esterházy, some 30 miles from Vienna. But nothing is ever said about why they would leave what some imagine as a cozy, romantic enclave in the heart of Galicia in the first place. From Rita Dove’s Sonata.