Word: fritz
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...world," Violinist Fritz Kreisler once explained, "is a great child and tires easily. You cannot make friends for long with all the world." But Violinist Kreisler must have had second thoughts. No musician of his time carried on a longer musical friendship with the world-and none left behind a less jaded audience when he finally withdrew from the concert stage. Kreisler was not only the greatest violinist of his generation, but also the last of a once common breed: his death last week, of a heart attack, just four days before his 87th birthday, marked...
Mortal Fiddler. The advance began on a violin fashioned out of an old cigar box and played by Kreisler when he was four. Son of a Viennese doctor, young Fritz entered the Vienna Conservatory at seven, the youngest child ever admitted. His career was interrupted by World War I, in which he was badly wounded while serving in the Austrian army, and again by the anti-German sentiment of wartime U.S. audiences. In 1941, he was struck by a truck in Manhattan. He recovered after days in a coma, but for a time forgot all modern languages and could speak...
Kreisler looked on Cellist Pablo Casals as "the greatest musician to draw a bow," and in his old age, he deplored the "fear of sentiment" among younger musicians. As for his own career: "I have achieved only a medium approach to my ideal in music," said Fritz Kreisler at 79. "I got only fairly near." Perhaps-but he got as close as any other mortal fiddler...
ZINO FRANCESCATTI, 56, is a lineal musical descendant of Paganini: his Italian-born father, who emigrated to Marseille to become concertmaster of the local symphony, had studied with Paganini's only pupil. Fritz Kreisler happened to play in Marseille when Francescatti was a boy. and the youngster never got over it. His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Francescatti had his mind made up; he would be a fiddler. He made a success ful Paris debut in 1925, later toured England with Maurice Ravel and English Soprano Maggie Teyte. He was already a major name in Europe...
...romantic of the old school, Oistrakh favors far slower tempos than most modern violinists, often imbues the music of Brahms, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky with the sort of kindling warmth that has reminded many a listener of Oistrakh's early idol, Fritz Kreisler. Whatever he plays-classics or occasional moderns-Oistrakh exudes conviction. "When the difficult parts come," says Violinist Francescatti, "he does not try to go around them. In fact, he shows you how difficult they are. He slows down, and this is the honesty of a great artist...