CONNECTIONS, across and within generations, and embracing two eras, from the high Romanticism of the 19th century through to the modern era of mass communications, the nascent technology in the early 20th century and onwards, are what define the career of Fritz Kreisler, the legendary Austrian violinist. But who now remembers Kreisler, a superstar of the last century? Older readers certainly will: Kreisler was emblematic of an era. But any younger readers? I just don’t know. Is Kreisler taught today in conservatoires, colleges and universities? Certainly, I’ve heard one young violin student describe Kreisler as passé and “probably out of date”.
I’m cautious when the subject comes up. When I first heard the sound of Kreisler’s violin playing, on the wireless, soon after my family decamped their native Jarrow, moving north and into our first Glasgow flat in in the early fifties, I did not like what I heard. Specifically, I didn’t like the sound and apparent sentiment that seemed to characterise Kreisler’s playing, dazzling though it was. To my young ears it was schmaltzy and saccharine in taste. That was not a singular view. A learned book has described Kreisler’s little and most-loved pieces, such as Liebesfreud , as “sugary Viennese morsels”, despite the fact that “they are all beautifully written to display brilliant, subtle and expressive violin playing”.
We’ve probably all neglected the fact that, on top of these tasty little sweet pieces, Kreisler also played the big concertos and, indeed, provided cadenzas for some of them. In any event, we are all smacked on the wrist and brought smartly up to date by a terrific project that’s up and running, having already been to the States and, just this month, to venues in London. This has been put together by the tremendous violinist Daniel Rohn, who plays all the Kreisler pops, but also the more hefty stuff, including Kreisler’s arrangement of a Bach Partita; and using modern technology Rohn also duets with Kreisler in a 1911 recording of Kreisler’s La Chasse, to breath-taking effect.
Rohn has assembled it all with a narrative, anecdotes and countless yarns, and has basically stripped the paint off preconceptions about Kreisler. The music itself, played with steel rather than saccharine by Rohn and pianist Paul Rivinius, has been recorded on a Berlin Classics CD, and is well-worth investigating. It contains fascinating revelations about Rohn’s own background and lineage, and it completely revivifies the sound and significance of Kreisler’s achievements.
It’s an extraordinary story. When Kreisler was born, in 1875, Wagner and Liszt were still alive and working. Brahms still had 22 years to live and his late masterpieces yet to write. Dvorak had 29 years to go while Mahler, aged 15 at the time of Kreisler’s birth, had 36 years in front of him and a symphony or 10 yet to come. Now all of this might stretch out into a nice straight historical line except for one thing: Kreisler was spectacularly precocious. By seven he was the youngest-ever student in the Vienna Conservatoire, where he graduated with a gold medal award. By 12, he had done post-grad work in Paris and had finished his training. His solo career began in 1899, launched with the Berlin Philharmonic. He was a smash hit, an overnight sensation. His career rocketed.
His London debut was in 1902, and among those blown away was Edward Elgar, who wrote his Violin Concerto for Kreisler, premiered in 1910. The violinist was among those, including Caruso, who embraced the new technology of recording, and that both spread his work, and his reputation, globally.
Kreisler avoided both world wars, going to the States during the first before returning to Berlin for a decade after it. Then, in 1939, he returned to America, where he became a US citizen in 1943. His career rolled on and his influence was fundamental. He played until 1947, when he retired after a farewell concert at Carnegie Hall. He lived until 1962.
Many international violinists acknowledged the influence of Kreisler, including the American virtuoso Ruggiero Ricci, born in 1918 in San Francisco and himself an international star. Ricci also lived a long life, dying only in 2012 at the age of 94. Indeed, one of Ricci’s obituarists described him as “the last of a Golden Age of violinists that included Jascha Heifitz, Yehudi Menuhin and Fritz Kreisler”. Back in the 1980s, Ruggiero Ricci visited Glasgow, where he gave a celebrity recital in the Henry Wood Hall. He was accompanied by pianistic legend Ian Brown of the Nash Ensemble. Just before the concert, Brown talked sternly to the youngish page-turner about where to turn, how he was going to accompany Ricci, the changes he was going to make in the accompaniments, and so on. The nervous page-turner was this writer.
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