"Dove's verse sequence re-creates the life of the biracial violinist George Bridgetower, best remembered for being the first performer, and the initial dedicatee, of Beethoven's 'Kreutzer' Sonata. (Beethoven replaced his humorous dedication to the 'lunatic and mulatto' after quarrelling with him, apparently over a woman.) A virtuosic treatment of a virtuoso's life, the poems use all registers—nursery rhymes, diary entries, drama—and are stuffed with historical and musical arcana. Yet the book remains highly accessible, reading much like a historical novel. Dove is fascinated by Bridgetower's life as a black musician and occasionally implies parallels with the world of jazz and rap, but the issue of race does not predominate. She is concerned equally with the status of musicians in a world of precarious patronage—even Haydn, at the Esterhazy estate, has 'no more leave / to step outside the gates / than a prize egg-laying hen'—and with 'the radiant web' of music itself."—The New Yorker